Richard Schmitt

In this, his final article to be published in the Radical Philosophy Review, submitted just before his death, Richard Schmitt makes the case for restorative justice as an alternative to retribution and punishment for those who break the law. Attacking both the empirical basis of “instrumentalist” arguments as well as the intuitions of “retributivists,” Schmitt argues that incarceration in particular, and punishment more generally, lack a significant rational justification. Likewise, Schmitt highlights difficulties for less well-known and popular arguments for punishment. As an alternative, Schmitt defends the practice of restorative justice, aimed at enjoining those who break the law to repair the harm done. While he canvasses a number of criticisms of restorative justice, Schmitt shows in the end that the focus on the victim and active engagement with the offender as well as the reduced rates of recidivism speak in favor of restorative justice processes as an alternative to retribution and incarceration.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:March 13, 2008 (7:35 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2702\russell 27,2 054.wpd 272 Reviews 1 See Brian J.yL. Berry and Donald C. Dahmen, “Paul Wheatley, 1921–1999”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91 (2001): 734–47. THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO WOULD BE IMMORTAL Richard Henry Schmitt U. of Chicago Chicago, il 60637, usa [email protected] David Leavitt. The Indian Clerk: a Novel. London: Bloomsbury, 2008; New York: Bloomsbury, 2007. Pp. 485. isbn 1-59691-040-2. £16.99; us$24.95 (hb). From the start, this novel interested me for two reasons. First, it attempts to tell us the personal stories of two individuals who were working at the highest level in a very abstract Weld, namely G.yH. Hardy (1877–1947) and Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) during their collaboration on pure mathematics between spring 1914 and spring 1919. Obviously the same problems would arise in trying to tell the personal story of Bertrand Russell’s supervision of Ludwig Wittgenstein in mathematical logic, which occurred at Cambridge University in the years just before the start of the Great War. It is a great challenge to try to tie personal dynamics and abstract thought into a single coherent narrative. There are implications for the philosophy of mathematics and the history and sociology of science. So, of course, we have to ask: how does author David Leavitt rise to this challenge? Second, a more personal reason: Paul Wheatley1 told me shortly before his death that he thought this period at Cambridge represented the highest accom- March 13, 2008 (7:35 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2702\russell 27,2 054.wpd Reviews 273 2 G.yH. Hardy, Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1940). Two lectures were presented at Harvard in 1936; the Wrst, a more personal recollection, was printed unchanged. The quote is from p. 2. The second lecture was expanded into the remaining published lectures, all considering speciWc mathematical topics. plishment possible for an academic institution: its fellows and masters had managed to attract and then recognize the genius of Ramanujan and Wittgenstein and to admit them to advanced studies without any real academic credentials. Wheatley had been the chair of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago; so, he knew something about such matters, as he did about many things involving humans, human settlements, and their arrangement in the world. Incidentally, Wheatley himself appeared as a character, Battle, in Ravenstein, Saul Bellow’s roman à clef about Allan Bloom. So, to the extent that Cambridge University just before and during the Great War plays a role here, we want to learn as much as we can about the atmosphere of the place. The Indian Clerk is a historical novelz—zin this case naming actual names, elaborating what we know about real people and occasionally adding Wctional charactersz—zall centered on the extraordinary mathematical genius Ramanujan and his equally extraordinary importation from India to Cambridge. The story is told largely in the third person, by an omniscient narrator, but repeatedly we also have the inner voice of G.yH. Hardy: there are a number of chapters with the indication “New Lecture Hall, Harvard University”, dated 1936, in which Hardy speaks in the Wrst person. In these passages David Leavitt uses parts of the published lectures, along with G.yH. Hardy’s private thoughtsz—zas imagined by Leavittz—zabout this “one romantic incident in my life” and about other matters that still haunt him.2 The novel is thus in some sense more about G.yH. Hardy and his inner life than it is about Srinivasa Ramanujan. The triumph of the novel is its ability to reconstruct and convey in a lively manner the circumstances of the time, the look and smell of the place, the crosscurrents, dynamics, and dislocations of people during these years. Leavitt has woven together a great deal, from many diTerent realms: pre-war meetings of the Apostles, the high table, the pre-war mathematics tripos, the method of collaboration between Hardy and J.yE. Littlewood, Cambridge as military training grounds and as hospital for the wounded, vegetarian cookery, feminism, Hindu...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:84 Reviews THE WAYS OF THE WITTGENSTEINS ACCORDING TO A WAUGH Richard Henry Schmitt U. of Chicago Chicago, il 60637, usa [email protected] AlexanderWaugh. TheHouseofWittgenstein:aFamilyatWar. London: Bloomsbury, 2008. Pp. 366. isbn: 0-7475-9185-7. £20.00 (hb). New York: Doubleday, 2009. Pp. 333. isbn: 0-385-52060-3. us$28.95 (hb). Ezach family is happy and unhappy in its own ways. This is hardly surprising zgiven that the family lies at the crossroad of so much human experience. It is the scene for playing out genetics and for working through the rearing and civilizing of children, both nature and nurture. In economic life it constitutes the primary unit, the household. Despite Tolstoy’s ideal, none can ever be com­ pletely happy for every member all the time. And, there is no reason to think that basically happy families are any more the same than unhappy ones. But then none can ever be completely unhappy; or rather, when a family is com­ pletely unhappy it is unlikely that it will remain one. One other factor, however, intrudes on this picture: we tend to be more interested in bad or scandalous news than good. Vicarious experience brings catharsis, possibly helpful in a way. Yet, as the German language recognizes with the word “Schadenfreudez”, we can experience joy at someone else’s sorrow, despite the questions it raises about our empathy. Alexander Waugh is himself the member of a famous family. He has written December 2, 2009 (5:28 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd Reviews 85 its “autobiography” in Fathers and Sons,1 where he is principally concerned with his father Auberon (“Bron”), his grandfather Evelyn, his great-uncle Alec, and his great-grandfather Arthur. Given the family documentation at his disposal and the span of generations, that book covers enough territory, in enough detail, to give us some sense of Waugh family character. You learn what it was like to grow up in the family, down to the odour of Uncle Auberon Herbert’s cologne, “smelling like Cleopatra in her barge on her way to meet Antony for the Wrst time” according to Bron (p. 370, paperback ed.), and the family suspicion that this uncle may have been the illegitimate son of Hilaire Belloc (p. 276). The fathers and sons, from Arthur down to Alexander, all wrote for a living, witty, stylish prose, and sometimes poetry. They especially liked writing about each other in letters, essays, and novels, often to each other in public letters and dedications; and as a consequence Alexander’s book is rich, amusing, intimate, and a bit indiscrete. Arthur’s turn-of-the-century avoidance of emotion in sentimentality grew outmoded, but it was replaced in the family business with newer models, with more Xash and cynicism. When it came to Alexander’s fa­ ther Bron, he was known for his talent at vituperation, and got into verbal and legal scrapes with C. P. Snow and Bertrand Russell among others (p. 407), which led to his getting sacked but only made his journalism more widely read and more valuable to publishers. In Alexander’s disclosure of his family history, there is a sureness of touch that comes from working within his ken. Waugh studied music, and worked as a music critic. In his easy, self-depreci­ ating way, he told an interviewer for The Wall Street Journalz that he got the idea to write this book because of “the most appalling boil on my right index Wnger”. This curtailed his routine enjoyment at the piano, “But then as I sat down and pressed a chord with my left hand I thought of Paul Wittgenstein. I knew about the concerto that Ravel composed for him and I knew that he was Ludwig’s brother. He was bound to have an interesting story.”2 With access to some Witt­ genstein family papers through one of Paul Wittgenstein’s daughters, he began. But a biography of the one-armed pianist soon turned into this “family history”, in part because of the author’s previous success with his own family, but also...

The theme is socialist solidarity. Schmitt notes that efforts towards solidarity fail because we do not know how to put our ideals in practice. The example is taken from the early kibbutzim. The founders were clear about their socialist principles but did not know how to put those in practice in such simple situations as the distribution of clothing. Schmitt concludes from that example that efforts to build socialist solidarity are often impeded by our ignorance of concrete techniques and arrangements needed for a solidary socialist society

Socialism is meant to be democratic. Socialist democracy demands solidarity but it remains unclear what solidarity consists of. Theorists provide a range of different characterizations of solidarity which are adequate in their contexts but will not suffice as the basis for socialist democracy. This paper shows how we should not understand that needed solidarity; it is not merely a solidarity based on commonalities that overlooks difference. On the contrary, it needs to be a kind of solidarity that establishes close but complex relations between various groups through their commitment to taking their differences seriously. There are many different ways of taking differences seriously. At the end, this paper makes some suggestions for further research to clarify the concept of solidarity in spite of difference.

The paper reflects on the methods democratic systems use for arriving at decisions. The most popular ones are elections where the majority rules and deliberative democracy. I argue that both of these do not measure up to the demands of democracy. Whether we use voting with majority rule or deliberative methods, only a portion of the citizenry is allowed to rule itself; minorities are always excluded. Instead of voting with majority ruler or deliberative methods, I suggest that we employ mediation to reach agreement in democratic publics.

A central challenge common to democratic processes is the inability of citizens to reach agreement on any given matter. Most frequently these disagreements are settled by vote, victory going to the majority. But majority rule is a fairly recent technique. Traditionally decisions were made by some form of non-opposition. This paper describes several versions of that decision-making technique and then shows how mediation methods, also known as “ADR”, can replicate these traditional ways of overcoming disagreement. The paper argues that these techniques are frequently superior to electoral methods of reaching agreement.

Jon Elster believes that methodological individualism is self-evident (Elster 1986, 66). Not finding it so, and being suspicious of philosophers who claim that their views are so obvious as to demand no arguments in their favor, I went back to retrace the outlines of the methodological individualism debate. It turns out that the participants to the debate disagree widely as to what they are arguing about; it is not obvious to them what methodological individualism is. The defenders of methodological individualism agree with their critics much more than those critics acknowledge. Each side ascribes views to the other which its proponents disown explicitly.

Calls for a rapprochement between analytic philosophy and phenomenology have lately been issued in England and America. It is not altogether clear what such calls intend. No one, I suspect asks for an attempt to restate, say, Austin’s views on language in Heideggerian jargon. More likely the unspoken hope is that, on the contrary, someone would enable analytic philosophers to understand what Husserl and Heidegger and some of the other phenomenologists have to say. This requires nothing less than a translation of these thinkers’ statements not only into a different natural language but into a different philosophical vocabulary. Translating German philosophical works into English is difficult. Translating Husserl’s or Heidegger’s views into a vocabulary acceptable to analytic philosophers is considerably more laborious. However arduous the task, translations from the vocabulary of Husserl or Heidegger into analytic jargon are possible. The present paper shows that they are, by discussing Heidegger’s distinction between ’vorhanden sein’ and ’zuhanden sein’ in reasonably plain English.