Menachem Fisch

Building on HalbertalHalbertal, M.’s distinction between primary and secondary shameHalbertal, M.Primary versus secondary shame (and against Nussbaum’s notion of “primitive shameNussbaum, M.Primitive shame”), the chapter offers a two-tiered analysis of shame comprising two distinct forms of normative self-failing. On the one hand, the shame felt when our privacy is deliberately violated, when our body or innermost thoughts and feelings are unwillingly exposed, and on the other, the very different kind of shame caused by failure to live up to norms we are committed to. The two will be shown to be hierarchically related, and despite their reflexive nature, their different dependence on others will be explored. In addition the chapter addresses the impoverished picture of personhood offered in Bernard WilliamsWilliams, B.’s Shame and NecessityWilliams, B.Shame and Necessity. It ends with a consideration of a third form of non-reflexive shame.

Against the backdrop of Rahel JeaggJeaggi, R.i’s critique of Harry FrankfurtFrankfurt, H.’s theory of personhood the chapter analyzes the normative import of second-order emotions. The idea is that a disapproving second-order emotional response to a first-order emotional responses that takes us aback, constitutes a moment of normative ambivalence prompted by the unanticipated turn of events that initially gave rise to the first-order response. In view of the crucial role played by normative ambivalation in rational normative self-criticism, to what extent can such moments be sought proactively?

Unlike the shame felt when failing to live up to the standards we abide by, humilityHumility is felt when prudently taking stock of, and owning up to our limitations and incapacities. If shame motivates self-correction, humility motivates outsourcing to others, better equipped or positioned for the task at hand. In this sense humility is shown to be an inherent component of rational action. However, the chapter goes on to argue, owning up to our inability in principle of holding our normative commitments themselves in normative check, and realizing the crucial importance of being criticized by others in this regard, renders this form of humble outsourcing the very epitome of rationality.

After discussing the four orders of reflexive emotion separately, this chapter places them side by side, with a view to showing, first, that in addition to being exclusively human, each of them constitutes a profound manifestation of a different grounding component of our humanity: primary shame, of the most rudimentary aspect of human selfhood; secondary shame, of our normativity; humor, of the uniqueness of our conceptual languages; humility, of our very rationality; second-order emotions, of our ability rationally assess our normative commitments. Second, setting them side by side allows us to appreciate the extent to which living up to our full human potential necessarily requires engaging real others—a claim of crucial political significance.

The chapter sets forth from four questions any viable philosophy of humor must address: why only humans can find something funny (as opposed to pleasing or playful)? Why what they find funny is limited to their world? Why is finding something funny the only feat of understanding that is rewarded by an animalistic bark of laughter? And why explaining a joke spoils it? Several theories of humor are briefly examined and rejected in favor of an updated version of Schopenhauer’s so-called “incongruity’ approach.

While adopting Martha NussbaumNussbaum, M.’s cognitivist view of emotionNussbaum, M.Cognitivist view of emotion as a form of perspectival judgment, the chapter takes issue with two major aspects of her emotions work. First, while she characterizes such judgments as “eudaimonisticNussbaum, M.Cognitivist view of emotionEudaimonistic judgments”, we deem them to be no less perspectival, yet more generally normative. Second, her almost exclusive focus on the role played by emotion in politics and the law,Nussbaum, M.emotions in politics and the law steers her discussion more toward social norms than to personal commitment, creating a blind spot with respect to the type of self-directed emotional responses focused upon here.

This chapter outlines the philosophical project of examining four specific orders of reflexive emotional response: shameShame, humorHumor, humilityHumility, and second-order emotionsSecond-order emotions, which it argues are inherently and universally human, regardless of their diverse cultural and historical forms of expressions. While cultural circumstance and context shape what they respond to, the capacity to feel these emotions, it argues, is fundamental to human nature. It frames the study’s philosophical approach by distinguishing it from psychological and linguistic analyses of the emotions under study. The approach to emotion adopted is decidedly cognitivist. It resolutely opposes reductive accounts of emotion as mere bodily responses, in favor of positioning the emotions studied as self-directed judgments rooted in human selfhood and agency. It thus takes a firm side in the broader philosophical debate between cognitivist and noncognitivist accounts of emotion in general. Acknowledging the challenges of evolutionary theory and neurophysiology, emotions like shame, humility and humor, it argues, are critical to understanding the human self and its capacity for rationality and self-critique.

This book looks closely at three first-order reflexive emotions--shame, humor and humility--that are shown to be not only exclusively human, but definitive of major aspects of human selfhood, agency and normativity. A separate chapter that covers second-order emotions, shows that when negative, they display a crucial and equally exclusive aspect of human normative self-critique. In addition to jointly delineating agency, sapience, normativity, rationality, and the ability to critically self-reflect, this book further demonstrates the inevitable role of the we in the I (to paraphrase Axel Honneth), namely, how realizing one's full human potential necessarily requires engaging others. This book appeals to students as well as researchers and looks closely at how these three reflexive emotions bestow categorical value on otherness, rendering normative diversity not merely something to be tolerated or rationally overcome, but a rare and necessary blessing.

Robert Brandom's "The Pragmatist Enlightenment" describes the advent of American pragmatism as signaling a sea-change in our understanding of human reason away from the top-down Euclidian models of reasoning, warrant and knowledge inspired by the physical sciences, toward the far more bottom-up, narrative, inherently fallible and dialogical forms of reasoning of the life and human sciences. It is against this backdrop that Talmudic Judaism emerges not only as an early anticipation of the pragmatist enlightenment, but as going a substantial and radical step beyond it, that in the context of religious commitment and reasoning, is unprecedented.

For many, the two key thinkers about science in the twentieth century are Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, and one of the key questions in contemplating science is how to make sense of theory change. In Creatively Undecided, philosopher Menachem Fisch defends a new way to make sense of the rationality of scientific revolutions. He argues, loosely following Kuhn, for a strong notion of the framework dependency of all scientific practice, while at the same time he shows how such frameworks can be deemed the possible outcomes of keen rational deliberation along Popperian lines. Fisch's innovation is to call attention to the importance of ambiguity and indecision in scientific change and advancement. Specifically, he backs the problem up, looking not at how we might communicate rationally across an already existing divide but at the rational incentive to create an alternative framework in the first place. Creatively Undecided will be essential reading for philosophers of science, and its vivid case study in Victorian mathematics will draw in historians.

__The View from Within_ _examines the character of reason and the ability of an individual to effectively distance himself from the normative framework in which he functions in order to be self-critical and innovative. To accomplish this task, Menachem Fisch and Yitzhak Benbaji critically employ or reject the recent writings of Brandom, Friedman, Frankfurt, Walzer, Davidson, Williams, Habermas, Rorty, and McDowell to offer a fundamental analysis of the character of reason and the problem of relativism. This ambitious book forcefully raises the problem of rational normative change and makes the unique and insightful claim that although we cannot be _convinced _by normative criticism to modify or replace our norms, we can be rationally _motivated_ to do so by the effect of exposure to trusted critics. Its unprecedented analysis, with its solution to the problem of normative self-criticism that has baffled philosophers for the past sixty years, will be welcomed by both students and scholars of philosophy. “__The View from Within_ _is a thorough evaluation of the arguments made by contemporary philosophers about the normative character of reason and the derivative problem of relativism. Fisch and Benbaji have admirably compared and contrasted competing positions, and with a balanced critique, they have made a sustained effort to ‘save’ rationality and provide new guideposts for its philosophical evaluation. A timely and important contribution.” —_Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University_