A definition of scientism

Dictionary.com has the following definition of scientism:

"The belief that the assumptions, methods of research, etc., of the physical and biological sciences are equally appropriate and essential to all other disciplines, including the humanities and the social sciences."

I think this is a weak definition. Those with a scientistic mentality don't always think that the methods of the hard sciences are appropriate to the humanities. What they think is that the methods of the hard sciences are the only methods that can result in knowledge. Their conclusion is not that scientific methods are appropriate to the humanities, but that the humanities don't issue in knowledge because they cannot be pursued according to scientific methods.

I prefer the following definition of scientism, which may not be original with me, although I have not come across it in quite this formulation:

"Scientism is the mistake of taking the results of science to be more firmly known than its prerequisites."

It is, in other words, to think physics is more certain than metaphysics. It is to be confident that the atoms, electrons, quarks and black holes that result from scientific inquiry are "really real", but be suspicious of the microscopes, telescopes and centrifuges the scientist uses to deduce those electrons and black holes. This suspicion may even extend to the mind of the scientist who conducted the science.

Another way of saying it is that the scientistic mindset finds the everyday world of common experience to be more metaphysically suspect than the world constructed by scientific inquiry. It is to be more confident of the reality of bosons and protons than it is of cars, trees or the wind. The self-contradiction of scientism is that the possibility of science depends on the reality of the world of common experience; if the world of common experience is suspect, then the science that occurs in it is at least as suspect. And it is metaphysics that explores and defends the world of common experience.

At the origin of modern science, Galileo constructed a telescope and looked through it to discover the moons of Jupiter. Galileo's scientific discovery was only possible because he was here, the moons of Jupiter were there, and he was able to look from here to there through the telescope. Galileo did not discover the distinction between here and there; he brought the distinction into science and it is that distinction (among other things) that made his science possible. His science is a science of reality only because the distinction between here and there is a distinction not merely in our minds, but in reality as well. If the distinction between here and there is not real, or is just a fantasy of our minds, then the science conducted in light of it is a fantasy as well. In fact, Galileo's science is a science of reality only to the extent that the metaphysics supporting it is a metaphysics of reality.

The reader may recognize Immanuel Kant lurking in that last paragraph, and Kant is the great philosopher of modernity because he understood the meaning of the presumptions of modern thought and refused to turn from their consequences. He did not try to have his cake and eat it too, as so many modern thinkers do.

The scientistic mindset doesn't get this, and, unlike Kant, tends to think that science can produce the metaphysics that would underwrite its own possibility. This is endemic to contemporary mind science. It is amazing how many mind investigators quote Kant yet how little he is understood. Mind investigators find the metaphysical status of the mind to be dubious and mysterious, but have great confidence in the metaphysical ground of the scientific conclusions this shadowy mind draws. It's as though they think a fictional scientist in a movie can draw real conclusions about the size of the theater in which the movie is shown. Alas, a fictional scientist can only conduct a fictional science... and a science of reality must start in reality, and to do that it needs a metaphysics of reality.

Philosophy and Freedom

It's been a long time since I've visited the blog of the Maverick Philosopher; I like the redesign Bill has done since I last visited. One thing that hasn't changed is his motto:

"Study everything, join nothing."

My latest visit reminded me that I've always instinctively recoiled from the motto. What Bill precisely means by it is explored more fully in this post. For my part, the motto seems to exclude from philosophy exactly that which I hope to get from it and, perhaps, what is crucial to philosophy as classically conceived. This post is an exploration of this theme.

In the dialog Crito, Socrates is waiting in prison for his execution and is offered a chance to escape. Crito agrees with him that the question of escape is ultimately one of justice, so they must consider the question of whether it is just for Socrates to escape. Socrates, briefly attempting to justify escape, considers the question in terms we would probably find natural:

"Or shall I answer the Laws, 'The reason is that the state wronged me, and did not judge the case right?'"

Socrates replies in the voice of the Laws, and his response is essentially this: It is not the prerogative of Socrates and Crito to judge whether the state has decided the case correctly. The Law and the State exist prior to Socrates, in many senses of the term, and the decision to even consider the possibility that escape might be justified betrays a misunderstanding of human existence. Socrates "joined" the City by the fact of his birth, and existence comes with duties and obligations that bind the philosopher as much as anyone else:

"First of all, did we not bring you into life, and through us your father took your mother, and begat you? ... Well, the laws about feeding the child and education in which you were brought up. Did not those which had that duty do well in directing your father to educate you in mind and body?... When you had been born and brought up and educated, could you say in the first place that your were not our offspring and our slave, you and your ancestors also? And if this is so, do you think you have equal rights with us, and whatever we try to do to you, do you think you also have a right to do to us?"

The response Socrates gives in the voice of the Laws is not merely a legal response. It is a philosophical one. If the vocation of the philosopher is to know and live the truth, then that vocation is betrayed when the philosopher does not acknowledge the duties and obligations that human existence necessarily involves. But it is more than this. We are by nature social animals; the obligations of country, family and religion are not arbitrary or heteronomous impositions on human nature. They are essential components to any human existence. It is natural for us to be joined to others and under the obligations of state, family and religion (among others). For the philosopher to know and live the truth about himself, he must know and live the truth about the social nature of human existence. In other words, "joining" is not something the philosopher should flee but something he should embrace, for it is only in "joining" that he can experience, or even know, the full truth about human being.

This doesn't say it quite right, because "joining" implies some prior state of human existence, absent obligation, and from which the person chooses or not to "join." The philosophical point I am making is that there is no such prior, obligation-free state of existence. Our existence is that of one already joined. This is why Socrates, even though he philosophically challenged the religion of Athens, nonetheless fulfilled its obligations. He understood that the philosophical vocation is not a free pass to ignore duty and obligation; more deeply, since duty and obligation are natural to human existence, the philosophical vocation can only be fulfilled by experiencing duty and obligation in its depths, not avoiding it wherever possible. The Socratic challenge to religion occurred from within religion and was itself an expression of religion purifying itself. Indeed, this is the only way true reform can happen, and was the path later followed by St. Thomas Aquinas and Soren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard has this to say about the difference between the classical and the modern philosopher:

"In Greece, as in the youth of philosophy generally, it was found difficult to win through to the abstract and to leave existence, which always gives the particular; in modern times, on the other hand, it has become difficult to reach existence. The process of abstraction is easy enough for us, but we also desert existence more and more, and the realm of pure thought is the extreme limit of such desertion.

In Greece, philosophizing was a mode of action, and the philosopher was therefore an existing individual. He may not have possessed a great amount of knowledge, but what he did know he knew to some profit, because he busied himself early and late with the same thing." [Concluding Unscientific Postscript, The Subjective Thinker 2.]

When he speaks of the individual and existence, Kierkegaard's meaning includes the duties and obligations specific to a person's individual existence. Socrates knew, "to his profit", that he was born and lived as a citizen of Athens and that his philosophical vocation could not entail a flight from Athens, but rather must involve an exploration of the mystery of obligation in his own specific, subjective context in Athens. We may, indeed, see Socrates' entire philosophical career as a fulfillment of his philosophical obligation to purify Athens from within; his willingness to die in Athens rather than escape, fully aware of the philosophical meaning of this submission, representing a "joining" to the city of unprecedented depth.

The monastic vocation of St. Thomas Aquinas, similarly, was not in tension with his philosophical vocation. St. Thomas, like Socrates, was one of those individuals born with the natural wisdom to "remain in existence" and embrace duty rather than "abstract" himself from it. It was only because he remained aware of the subjective truth of human existence in his monastic vocation, that his philosophical vocation had the effect it did. Like Socrates, St. Thomas offered a philosophical challenge to the religion of his day, offering a Christian interpretation of Aristotle that challenged the reigning Platonism. Although St. Thomas's doctrines were initially proscribed by the Bishop of Paris, his philosophy was later embraced by the universal Church, in no small part because of the manifest holiness of the man St. Thomas (see Etienne Gilson's the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on this.) St. Thomas's reformation of Christian philosophy was more easily accepted because, coming from St. Thomas, a man who clearly fulfilled the meaning of Christian existence in his own life, it was easier to trust that his philosophy was authentically Christian as well.

Returning to the motto ("Study everything, join nothing"), we may ask what "everything" includes. Does it include the human things - friendship, love, faith, hope, duty, honor, responsibility, justice, among others? I submit that none of these things can be understood from the outside; from studying them without joining them. And joining them means joining some human community of which they are an aspect. Plato held that the young should not be taught philosophy because they do not have the experience to make it meaningful. They don't have the "data" of philosophy, as it were. The data only comes from life, and the more "joined" that life the better. Socrates was a military veteran and St. Thomas an avowed mendicant friar.

I think my last foray over to the Maverick Philosopher involved the book Into the Wild. If you don't recall, this is the story of Chris McCandless, a young man eventually found dead living on his own in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan countryside. McCandless was an intelligent and passionate young man, and his foray into the Alaskan wilderness was not his first adventure of this type. McCandless was clearly a man "looking for something" in the philosophical sense, and his extreme adventures were an attempt to break through to some philosophical or spiritual state of being. He was a young man of some virtue, and his story is reminiscent of medieval figures like St. Francis of Assisi, abandoning all in favor of a higher vocation. But the strongest impression I got from reading Into the Wild was the essential immaturity of what McCandless was attempting. What all his adventures had in common was that they strictly avoided any obligation or responsibility. This is what separates him from someone like St. Francis. Sometimes McCandless would take odd jobs (like mucking out cattle pens), and although he was always well-regarded in his work, he would never stay in the same job for long. My impression was that as soon as he began to develop some local ties, to become "rooted" in a community, he would see that as a signal to move on. This is the modern mistake of seeing the meaning of freedom in freedom from obligation and responsibility, of not being "joined" to anything. But such "freedom" involves a distortion of the meaning of human existence, Unfortunately, philosophers in the old mold of St. Thomas or Socrates are rare in the modern university, so McCandless never learned this lesson despite his formal philosophical education. Even more unfortunately, a passionate soul like McCandless will finally only find frustration in such a free-floating existence; instead of finding true meaning in the free submission to something greater than himself, he will seek it in ever more radical and dangerous individual experiences, experiences that may eventually become lethal.

The banner on my blog is not intended as a rejoinder to the Maverick Philosopher's motto, but it functions as one nonetheless. The subjective thinker does not wish to study without joining, but to understand himself in the context of his concrete existence, with its relationships, obligations and duties. He wishes to think philosophically, that is in terms of abstract universals like "justice", "friendship" and "love", but with reference to the specifics of his own existence - "to understand the abstract concretely."

The Globe on Trial by Ordeal

The Boston Sunday Globe has a fascinating article on the medieval practice of trial by ordeal here. The most amazing aspect is the positive account the article gives for the Church's relationship to such trials - any compliment to the Church by the Globe being itself a miracle.

Aristotelian Principles of Engineering

The hiatus in my blogging was due to the fact that, early in October, I learned that the company I worked for was going out of business. Sunset for the company was January 1, so I had from October through December to find another position. As you can imagine, this caused me more than a little anxiety, being responsible for a family of five in this economic environment.

Anyway, I eventually was offered a new position on Dec. 23. Surprisingly enough, it was Aristotle who helped me land this job. Normally in interviewing for these technical positions (I work as a software engineer), I keep silent about my passion for philosophy. But in this interview, I decided to be a little more bold, especially as I didn't think I was particularly well-qualified for the job - and these days, you have to be outstandingly well-qualifed to even be considered. So I figured what the heck, and went on for a little bit about Aristotle. My interviewer, to my surprise, showed real interest and we talked philosophy for a while. The interview was on Friday, and on Saturday I wrote a paper expanding on some of my ideas. I emailed it to him, and the next week I was offered a job. Here is the paper I wrote:


Aristotelian Principles of Engineering

Conventional and Unconventional Thinking

Back in my undergraduate days, a psychology professor conducted an in-class experiment with scissors and string that has stuck with me. I cannot recall all the details of the experiment, but I do remember that it consisted of a challenge to retrieve an object some distance away without touching it with your hands or moving from your spot. The subject was allowed a pair of scissors and a length of string with which to complete the task. It turned out it could be accomplished by tying the string to the scissors, throwing the scissors over and on top of the object, and then using the weight of the scissors to drag back the object. The psychological point of the experiment was that the conventional use of scissors (as something with which to cut string) often prevented the subject from seeing an unconventional solution involving scissors. When the experiment was conducted with the scissors replaced with a conventional weighting object like a paperweight, nearly all subjects quickly perceived the solution.

The unconventional solution of problems is, of course, the phenomenon that has come to be known by the phrase "thinking outside the box", now virtually a cliche. The ability to find unconventional solutions is valuable, but it occurred to me that the vast majority of our thinking is necessarily conventional - "thinking inside the box." Since so much of our thinking is conventional, rather than seeking ways to escape conventional thinking into unconventionality, why not find ways to make our conventional thinking as fruitful as possible? That is the theme of this paper - the investigation of conventional thinking with specific reference to engineering.

Let us consider a little more deeply the meaning of "conventional." With respect to scissors and string, it is not arbitrary or accidental that the conventional use of scissors is to cut string; scissors were designed for that very purpose. The conventional use of scissors reflects their fundamental nature. To think conventionally, then, is to think in terms of nature. To think well conventionally is to think well in terms of nature.

Who shall teach us how to think well about nature, and therefore to think well conventionally? It may seem surprising that an ancient Greek philosopher can teach us valuable lessons about nature, and in particular lessons valuable to modern engineering. Skepticism is only increased when we remember that Aristotle's physics was decisively overthrown by the physics of Newton in the 17th century. Nevertheless, I have found that Aristotle, the great classical philosopher of nature, has important lessons to teach about modern engineering. Whether there is irony in the unconventional use of Aristotle to understand conventional thinking in modern engineering, is a decision I will leave to the reader.

Aristotle's Understanding of Nature - The Four Causes

Aristotle taught that we understand something only if we understand its causes. In his Physics, he analyzes causes into four types: The final cause, or the point or purpose of something (e.g. scissors are for cutting); the formal cause or the principles that make something what it is (scissors consist of two blades working in tandem to achieve a cutting); the material cause or the "stuff" of which something is made (scissors are made from steel or plastic blades); and the efficient cause or the source of its coming into being (scissors are put together in a factory.) Our modern minds tend to think of causation only in terms of the efficient cause, but it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's other three causes.

The final cause, for instance, is not merely the point of something but is the goal (telos) of its existence. Aristotle thought that all natural beings have a tendency or drive to fulfill their individual natures; fire "wants" to consume things in flames. Whatever our view of the ultimate reality of such an internal drive, thinking in its terms can provide a different and potentially valuable perspective on systems. In our scissors and string solution, for example, if we think of scissors as "wanting" to cut things, then we can perceive a certain instability and even danger in our solution. Even though we are only using the scissors as a weight, they still retain their sharp blades and hinged connection. The blades can fly about when we toss them, perhaps slicing through the string, sticking into a surface, or possibly injuring someone. The scissors will continue to "try" to cut things even though cutting is not part of the intent of our solution. More generally, to the extent that our solution does not permit its elements to fulfill their teloi, or is in conflict with them, it will include elements that may contribute to instability. Solutions with elements fulfilling their teloi will tend to increase stability; replacing the scissors with a paperweight (an object with no telos beyond weighting) in our experimental solution would create a more stable system.

There is something even deeper going on as beings fulfill their teloi. Aristotle teaches that being exists in two primary modes: Act and potency. An acorn is an actual nut and a potential oak tree. The careers of temporal beings can be thought of as a series of movements between potentiality and actuality, as an acorn grows from being a potential oak tree into an actual oak tree. The telos of something points the direction from potentiality towards full actuality. But things can act only insofar as they exist; therefore things are more powerful insofar as they are actualized, or insofar as they have fulfilled their teloi. When we engineer our solution such that its elements fulfill their teloi as much as possible, we know that they are operating at their maximum power. Conversely, a clue that our solution may not be optimal is the discovery that its elements are not employed at full actuality or against their teloi.

Let me flesh out these principles with an example from software engineering. We may be able to use any particular software language to solve any particular problem, just as we can use a pair of scissors as a paperweight. We have nature working for us, however, if we match the nature of the language to the nature of the problem at hand. The C programming language was designed as a "general-purpose programming language... not specialized to any particular area of application." It is a relatively "low-level" language, has an "absence of restrictions", is not a "strongly-typed language" and one that "retains the basic philosophy that programmers know what they are doing."[1] If we use C in accord with its nature, then we will use it for low-level programming that does not permit restrictions, and we will remain careful and self-disciplined in its use. Only then will C function at its maximum power. C++ is an extension of C that provides support for data abstractions and object-oriented design.[2] If C++ is part of our solution, then our solution will tend to be maximally powerful and stable if the software reflects the abstract and object-oriented nature of C++; that is, if the software fulfills the telos of C++.

Aristotle's Understanding of Nature - Hierarchy

Aristotle's understanding of nature was hierarchical. Things do not exist in isolation but in the context of intelligible systems. Aristotle uses the example of the eye, which is truly itself only when it is in the body and functioning properly. An eye in a lab dish is, for Aristotle, something that is not really "being" an eye at all. So the eye can fulfill itself only in the context of a human being that is also fulfilling itself. The telos of the eye consists of more than completing itself in an act of vision; it finds its true fulfillment in the flourishing of the complete human being.

We can think along similar lines concerning the elements of our engineering solutions. It's not enough that a particular element be perfectly designed in itself. It truly fulfills its telos only to the extent that it goes beyond its own perfection to contribute to the perfection of the overall system. Our C++ solution may evidence isolated perfection in its use of object-oriented principles, but that solution is not optimal if it does not promote the operation of the overall system in the best possible way. It may be that, by compromising object-oriented principles somewhat, we can save resources (e.g. processing overhead) that are particularly sensitive in a certain system. Such a solution fulfills the "remote" final cause more fully at the expense of the "local" final cause, and is more perfect since the local final cause is in service to the final cause of the system as a whole. Final causes, teloi, find their meaning in a downward hierarchy or, if we prefer it this way, the teloi of the elements of a well-made system come together in a symphony expressed in the telos of the complete system.

The Philosophical Engineer

Aristotle begins his Metaphysics by stating that "All men by nature desire to know." He means by this more than knowing external nature. He means as well man knowing himself in his own act. The Aristotelian engineer, then, is an engineer self-consciously aware of what he is doing as an engineer. He understands the relationship of formal, final, material and efficient causes, the hierarchical relationship of final causes to each other, and his own role as the agent who brings each element to its perfection in the context of an entire solution. He knows how to think well in terms of nature, to think well conventionally.

But he can do more than this. There are times when conventional solutions are called for, and others when unconventional solutions should be sought. If the Aristotelian engineer understands himself as an engineer, he will have some idea when he is in either situation. Consider for the last time our scissors and string experiment. Its most outstanding feature are the restrictions on the solution. We can only use string and a pair of scissors and cannot move from our spot. We are not in the position of finding the appropriate elements to include in a complete solution; we are handed the elements and must make of them the best we can. This is a situation that calls for unconventional thinking. In fact, a wise student subjected to this experiment may very well guess this from the restrictions.

In our engineering life, we should sense that unconventional solutions may be required when we are subject to restrictions in time, materials or methods. To the extent that we are not subject to restrictions, we should try to think well in a conventional manner; that is, according to the natures of the problem and its possible solutions. It is the difference between constructing a carbon dioxide scrubber in the development phase of the Apollo program, and constructing one from scratch in the Apollo 13 capsule after an explosion. The former may be a model of elegant engineering, the latter a hodgepodge of duct tape and cardboard that nonetheless gets the job done.

In any case, it is part of good conventional thinking to know when conventional thinking has reached its limits or is inappropriate. The Aristotelian engineer knows when to stop thinking like Aristotle.

[1] Kernighan and Ritchie,The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition, Preface to the First Edition.
[2] Stanley Lippman,C++ Primer, Preface.

Scientism Summary

I have been very busy with other things and have been unable to blog for these last several months. This unfortunate situation will continue for a little while longer.

But I can't let pass John Derbyshire's neat summary of scientism at the Corner on National Review Online. Like every thinker in the thrall of scientism, Derbyshire can't see that his formulation denies its own possibility. Take the last paragraph:

We don't know much about the natural world; what we don't know is vastly more than what we do know; and there are squishy areas where we aren't sure whether we know or don't know. The things we do know to high probability, though, we know through methodical inquiry, observation, measurement, classification, discussion, comparison of results, consensus — through science. The rest is wishful thinking, power games, social fads, and the sleep of reason.

Let me call the proposition "The things we know to high probability we know through methodical inquiry, observation, measurement, classification, etc.. - through science" proposition S. Now proposition S is not itself known through the methods it specifies, the methods of science. Derbyshire did not go into the lab and measure the molar mass of proposition S vs. the molar mass of some other proposition, say "Truth is best known through philosophical dialog" or "Science can only defend itself through philosophy, and if philosophy is undermined, science inevitably will be as well." No, proposition S is either known philosophically or it is not known at all. But proposition S denies "high probability" to anything other than that which is known through the methods of science; therefore it cannot be known with high probability. We can know it at most with low-probability. In fact, according to Derb's epistemology, it's got to be either wishful thinking, power games, social fads or the sleep of reason. I wonder which he prefers.

We could leave proposition S to its absurd self-destruction, if scientism were the only casualty. Unfortunately Derbyshire's self-contradictory scientism puts science itself in danger; proposition S seems to be the only possible defense of science conceivable to many. But science can only truly be defended through a genuine philosophy of knowledge; a philosophy that explores the ways of knowing and the relationships between them. Such a philosophy would certainly acknowledge the methodical power and certainty of science and provide a philosophical foundation for them (as Kant did in the Critique of Pure Reason.) Defending science by undermining philosophy can't work, anymore than science can be defended by undermining arithmetic.

Beyond all that, I am always fascinated with the man who can tell us about things he himself denies he knows. We know very little about the natural world, Derbyshire says, compared with what we don't know. How does he know how much we don't know? He doesn't say, for the good reason that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. At least I don't know what I don't know and can't say anything about it, including how much of it is lurking out there. Derb, however, can somehow get a quantitative estimate of what he doesn't know, no doubt through the best practices of science - inquiry, observation and measurement and whatnot. Now that's some powerful science.

Complexity as Inevitable

I would love to leave the Intelligent Design/Evolution controversy alone and read John Derbyshire in peace... why must I be ambushed by comments such as these from his Straggler column?

There are great cosmic principles at work here. Simplicity yields to complexity. From ammonites and trilobites come seven hundred species of dinosaur; from the spare pronouncements of the Master come annotations, exegesis, and commentary upon commentary; from the convenience of a phone call we advance to email inbox folders, texting, MySpace, Facebook, and twittering. There were originally three federal crimes: there are now, according to one scholar's tally, at least 4,452. (Did you know that as of 2002 it has been a federal crime to move birds across state lines to engage in fights?)

Derbyshire is a highly intelligent man, certainly smarter than I am. Yet this quote is open to a Sesame Street-level analysis that seems beyond the reach of committed Darwinists like him: Which one of these things is not like the others? His examples of exegesis and commentary, email and twittering, and the increase in federal law are all examples of the effects of intelligent agency. The complexity in these cases doesn't just "happen" as though complexity is waiting in the wings for simplicity to "yield" to it. It only happens because intelligent men apply their minds to the world and add complexity to it. The one case where this is alleged not to have happened is in the simplicity of ammonites "yielding" to the complexity of dinosaurs. Can't you just hear those complex dinosaurs banging at the door to be let in?

It may very well be that dinosaurs developed from ammonites through the unintelligent, mechanical process that Darwinists suppose. I don't know. I do know that email and federal law certainly didn't. What is perplexing about Darwinism, and makes me wary of it, is the manner in which its allegedly hard-headed and skeptical advocates fail to see the obvious. If they can't see intelligent agency in email and federal law, why should I put any stock in their assurances that there is no intelligent agency in the development of life?

Conventional Courage and the Western Way of War

Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope, Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation recalled for me Victor Davis Hanson's thesis of the "Western Way of War." In a series of books (this and this one for a start - both good), Hanson argues that the West has prosecuted wars in a peculiarly violent and effective manner throughout its history. He attributes this to cultural reasons, which are summarized in the Amazon editorial reviews.

Hanson doesn't get much into philosophy, but I wonder how much the philosophical distinction between nature and convention that I mentioned in this post has contributed to the lethality of the West. Cultures that do not possess this philosophical distinction (and it seems that they do not prior to their encounter with the West, but I am not enough of a cultural anthropologist to say this categorically) tend to have a conventional way of fighting. By this I mean a way of fighting that is not necessarily rationally ordered to the end of victory, but is a stylized way of fighting that has developed for peculiar religious or traditional reasons.

For instance, the life of the Crow warrior was centered around "counting coups", which meant performing bold exploits against the enemy. Lear writes that

If the survival of the Crow tribe as a social unit had been the primary good, one might expect that highest honor would go to the warrior who killed the first enemy in battle, or the warrior who killed the most. But to count coup it was crucial that, at least for a moment, one avoided killing the enemy. There is a certain symbolic excess in counting coups. One needed not only to destroy the enemy; it was crucial that the enemy recognize that he was about to be destroyed.

Lear analyzes the notion of counting coups and concludes that, for a nomadic hunting tribe like the Crow, the crucial point was to establish boundaries with respect to other tribes. The form that counting coups takes with the Crow makes sense from this point of view; tapping the enemy with your coup stick before killing him makes him recognize the boundary he has violated before he dies; taking his weapons from him while he is still alive demonstrates that he cannot pass this boundary as a warrior:

The establishment of boundaries will, of course, be important to any cultural group. But it is especially tricky when it comes to a nomadic group whose migration depends heavily on hunting. As the tribe migrates, its defensible boundaries will shift, but it needs to be able to exert a proprietary claim over the animals within its (shifting) domain; and it needs to be able to repulse the proprietary claims of its rivals. Counting coups is the minimal act that forces recognition from the other side. The about-to-die Sioux warrior is, after all, about to die: if all goes as planned, he will be no further threat to the Crow. Recognition of the Crow boundary is the second-to-the-last thing the Crow warrior wants from him. (The last thing is his scalp, but that will serve as a token that he achieved that recognition.) If the tribe's goal is the firm establishment of a boundary, then the act of counting coups is not excessive. It strikes the mean between the defect of wishful thinking that one has boundaries when one is unwilling or unable to defend them and the excess of slaughtering one's enemies so quickly that one does not obtain from them recognition of anything. When struck with a coup-stick, the Sioux warrior recognizes a Crow boundary because he also recognizes that he is about to die.

The problem with Lear's argument is that, since the Sioux warrior is about to die, what does it matter whether he recognizes a boundary or not? If the establishment of boundaries is the goal of counting coups, then what matters is whether the surviving Sioux recognize the boundary, not the dead Sioux. Furthermore, even if Lear were successful in establishing a rational goal for counting coups, it doesn't follow that the Crow counted coups for those rational reasons. Lear's analysis attempts to show that the conventional form of Crow courage is the form it should take according to the nature of Crow life; in other words, it is an analysis from means to end. But there is no reason to think that Crow traditions were established with this sort of rational analysis. They seem to have developed innocently and unreflectively, like most traditions within aboriginal peoples.

Counting coups is reminiscent of the Aztec way of war that Hanson discusses in Carnage and Culture. Aztec weapons were not particularly lethal; their purpose was to stun the enemy so the Aztec warrior could drag his opponent back to the pyramid to be a ritual human sacrifice. It turns out that this way of fighting was effective against other native tribes for psychological reasons. But it is unlikely that it developed as a deliberate way to psychologically demoralize the enemy. Probably the religious ritual came first, and it was later discovered that Aztec warriors capturing the enemy to be human sacrifices had a particularly devastating effect on their morale. Whatever the case, it didn't have much impact on the morale of Hernan Cortez and his men. One reason so few Conquistadors were able to conquer an Aztec empire of hundreds of thousands is that the Aztec way of war was singularly ineffective against Spanish steel. But, more significantly, the Aztec could not adapt their methods of war to the novel enemy constituted by the Spanish. Their staggering losses to Spanish swords and armor did not cause them to reconsider the practice of human sacrifice as a way of war. Courage for an Aztec warrior still meant dragging an enemy off to the pyramid. They had no rational tradition of philosophy to treat warfare abstractly as a mean to an end, or to understand courage as involving means to an end.

Although Cortez was not a philosopher, he was raised in a culture that was informed by the philosophical notions of nature vs. convention and means vs. ends. Courage in the West is not finally specified by a particular act in battle, like striking the enemy with your coup stick or stunning him so he can be a human sacrifice. It means overcoming your fears and facing lethal dangers in the service of victory - whatever form that might take in any particular situation. Cortez approached the Aztecs rationally as a military problem to be solved. (The moral analysis of the Conquistadors is another subject entirely.) He even went so far as to construct his own navy from scratch to eliminate the Aztec mobility on the lake surrounding Tenochtitlan.

It is the Western tradition of philosophically-based rationality that has made it so lethal, for it has given the West a flexibility and creativity in war not known to non-Western peoples.