Philosophy On The Mesa

This being San Diego, the land of Comic-Con, I thought it might be interesting to look at some recent philosophically-minded comic books. I intend this initially as a three-part series, but we shall see how far I actually get.

I want to begin by looking at a fairly obvious choice for this: Apostolos Doxiadis’s and Christos H. Papadimitriou’s (with Alecos Papadatis and Annie di Donna on art) Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. This 300-page graphic novel with an extensive appendix tells the story of Bertrand Russell and his quest for a firm foundation for mathematics and logic. In the process, the story covers every major logician and mathematician and their ideas of the first half of the 20th Century (including, but not limited to: George Boole, Georg Cantor, Gottlob Frege, Kurt Gödel, David Hilbert, Giuseppe Piano, Henri Poincare, Alan Turing, John Von Neumann, Alfred North Whitehead, and Ludwig Wittgenstein). In addition, the story also cuts to the creators themselves (and Doxiadis’s dog Manga, whom, we are informed in a footnote, is not named after the Japanese comic form) as they wander through Athens and discuss the creation of the graphic novel. This latter storyline is not a post-modern conceit but is, instead, as the authors themselves reveal, an exploration of the notion of self-reference without which any discussion of 20th Century logic is incomplete.

Being somewhat familiar with the story covered in this work thanks to an excellent year-long class I took from Penelope Maddy my first year in graduate school, the authors do a good job covering the ideas and issues Russell and others struggled with in their quest to find a secure and uncontroversial foundation for mathematical (and by extension) logical truths. However, as we learn from the authors themselves, these philosophical ideas are secondary to the story of the individuals and personalities (primarily Russell) who engaged in these investigations.

It is this aspect of the story in which the book really excels as the creators are able to give one a real sense of the concerns and motivations and obsessions that propel the protagonists on their quest, in many cases to the exclusion of everything else, as well as the profound disappointments (and in at least one case ecstatic joy) when it is proven that the goals of said quest are unobtainable. The authors, perhaps, try to psychologize this quest a bit too much by explaining the various philosophical ideas as an extension of biographical details of the philosophers, but it is certainly the case that a surprisingly large number of the major thinkers who explored these issue were ultimately driven insane (or perhaps it was a certain predisposition to insanity that led and enabled these individuals to take up these issues in the first place. That, at least, seems to be the conclusion of the authors).

My one major complaint about this otherwise excellent and fascinating work is that the authors do not exploit the medium of the graphic novel as effectively as they could in explaining some of the more significant logical and mathematical ideas. One thing I really remember from the aforementioned class with Professor Maddy was her ability to graphically explain many of the more difficult and abstract logico-mathematical concepts. As just one example, I still vividly remember how she was able to graphically explain the idea that some infinitely large sets can be larger or smaller than other infinitely large sets. In many respects I think it was a missed opportunity on the part of the creators to not exploit the graphic medium to explain things like infinities or Turing machines. In the creators defense, this work is not intended as a logic for dummies text, or even a history of ideas, but instead an examination of characters and personalities. In this respect Logicomix succeeds admirably, and I highly recommend this fascinating work.

In a comment to a much earlier post, Dwight Furrow wrote:

Even though I don’t have a personal relationship with a winemaker in Chile or a coffee producer in Nicaragua, it isn’t obvious to me why I ought to care less about their circumstances, or value their product less than that of local producers.

This raised an interesting issue in my mind that I finally have the time to think about. In particular, I am wondering if it is possible to care–to have an authentic ethical relationship–to an individual you don’t meet? In his comment above, Dwight suggests that such a relationship is possible. I myself am not sure either way, but I thought I would try and articulate a position in opposition to Dwight in the hopes of talking a bit more about these issue. In arguing against Dwight, I intend to enlist the aid of two rather disparate thinkers: Emmanual Levinas and Michael Pollan.

To begin with, Levinas makes a strong case that the only authentic relationship between two individuals can come in the form of a face to face encounter. In fact, Levinas goes so far as to argue that human subjectivity is constituted by this encounter. As he writes in an essay on Kierkegaard, “This putting in question signifies the responsibility of the I for the Other. Subjectivity is in that responsibility and only irreducible subjectivity can assume a responsibility. This is what constitutes the ethical.” As Levinas sees it, the face of the other person puts a demand upon us and it is through responding to this demand that we become ethical subjects. Put another way, without this face to face contact, we can’t be ethical and we can’t even be subjects. Perhaps I am pushing Levinas too far, but it does seem that for him we can’t form the right kind of relationship to an other absent this face to face encounter.

In his The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan makes what I take to be a similar claim. In his discussion of industrial organic farms, Pollan argues that in order to produce food on an industrial scale, one must use industrial practices. In the chapter “Big Organic” Pollan examines how one of the largest organic food companies in the world (Earthbound Organic) grows and processes baby lettuces. One of the most startling revelations Pollan makes is that once the lettuce is harvested from the field, it follows the exact same path that conventional lettuce follows. That is, aside from the method of growing, the processing of organic and conventional produce is identical. In this same vein, Pollan quotes a “post-industrialist” farmer who argues that, “the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye…”

Furthermore, in this same chapter he discusses the disconnect between how people conceive of organic food and the reality of its production. All of this together suggests to me that one can’t have an authentic, caring relationship with a farmer one never sees working on a farm one never visits.

Anyway, these are just some thought, I would be interested in hearing the comments of others.

As a quick follow-up on my earlier post about large corporations co-opting the language and rhetoric of the slow food movement, today I came across this article in the New York Times. There is a nice quotation in the article that, I believe, nicely summarizes why I find this practice so problematic:

“The local foods movement is about an ethic of food that values reviving small scale, ecological, place-based, and relationship-based food systems,” Ms. Prentice said. “Large corporations peddling junk food are the exact opposite of what this is about.”

The real concern here, I think, is that as large corporations increasingly co-opt and corrupt the language of this movement, people will lose touch with the ideas and values that inform the movement. As I see it, the Slow Food Movement is motivated, in large part, by an ethic of care (I would be curious to hear Dwight’s thoughts on this) in which one’s eating habits are guided and shaped by the relationships one forms with individuals in one’s community. Rather than buy food from who-knows-where grown by strangers one never even sees, one instead develops a relationship with the local farmers. In exchange for supporting her operations, she provides me with quality products that are grown in a responsible manner. I know they are grown in a responsible manner because I know the person who grew them and I can go and see the farm where the food is grown. It is this emphasis on forming relationships that is so important to the Slow Food movement, and which is lost through this co-option of the movement by large corporations.

Free Beer: As a quick side-note, I recently started brewing my own beer and am relatively pleased by my first efforts. I currently have way too much around the house, so if any of my colleagues would like to try some locally produced beer, just drop me a line and I will  bring you a bottle or two.