“Forget Philosophy, Just Solve Problems - Wall Street Journal” plus 1 more

Forget Philosophy, Just Solve Problems - Wall Street Journal

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By Christopher Shea

Robert Wright explains why he's an "anti-intellectual intellectual," in the American Prospect:

I've held on to the essential spirit of [B.F.] Skinner—which, I now see, was also the spirit of my father. By that I don't mean anti-intellectualism as much as a bedrock pragmatism. Got a problem? Analyze it as cleanly as possible, and then, having seen its roots, solve it. And don't waste time dropping the names of any fancy French philosophers.

Now, pragmatism is a proud American tradition (as is bashing French philosophers, even in American philosophy departments). But consider the arc that Wright describes in the piece. In high school, he became fascinated with Skinner, who thought the behavior of humans was entirely malleable, shaped by social influences. Later, he rejects Skinner's view of humanity and embraces evolutionary psychology, which is far more deterministic. In fact, he comes to believe that many philosophical intuitions (regarding, for example, ethics) are not the product of rationality but of instinct:

And once you've reduced a philosophical intuition to a mere instinct, a product of our species' natural history, its rightness, in my view, comes into question. So I've argued that punishment isn't a moral good in itself and is warranted only to the extent that it either keeps criminals off the street or deters would-be criminals.

There's no philosophical jargon there, but if those aren't philosophical claims, I'm not sure what would count as philosophy! (Here's a recent philosophy-journal article exploring claim No. 1. Whole groaning shelves in libraries explore claim No. 2.)

Then comes a classic "to be sure" paragraph:

Perhaps my biggest departure from the Skinnerian line has been the time I've spent pondering things like free will and the mind-body problem …

Yes, Wright is just your typical lunch-pail American pragmatist, whiling away his hours thinking about free will and the mind-body problem.

(As it happens, the best-known defenders of the position Wright defends in this piece were—philosophers. Namely, John Dewey and Richard Rorty. You might say that they, too, were anti-intellectual intellectuals. But Rorty also liked Jacques Derrida, for what that's worth.)

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New boss in control;Gonzalez's first day starts early with different schedule, same philosophy. - FOXSports.com

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David O'Brien; Staff , The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Updated Feb 16, 2011 8:11 AM ET

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. --- Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez required no alarm clock Tuesday on the first day of workouts for pitchers and catchers. By 4:15 a.m, he was getting coffee at a convenience store on his way to the ballpark.

"I was up at 3:45, ready to go," said Gonzalez, 47, who follows in the footsteps of his iconic mentor, Bobby Cox --- but without the old-school spikes Cox wore until the end of his quarter-century managing the Braves.

"Couldn't sleep," Gonzalez said. "This is an exciting day for me."

Gonzalez was at Champion Stadium by 5 a.m. That was an hour before the famously early arriving Cox rolled in Tuesday. (Cox is in camp in an advisory role, and has played golf with Gonzalez twice in the past few days.)

After a 9:30 a.m. team meeting, Gonzalez and his coaches put Braves pitchers and catchers through a three-hour workout on a splendid sunny day at ESPN's Wide World of Sports.

There was no music permitted in the clubhouse --- the same rule Cox had --- but there were a few changes in the way the Braves went about their business.

Unlike Cox, who preferred to concentrate workouts on the main field and an adjacent field beyond the center-field scoreboard, Gonzalez utilized all six fields to get more repetitions for hitters and pitchers.

"Different schedule," veteran pitcher Tim Hudson said. "But it's spring training. It's just when, where and how."

Derek Lowe, another veteran pitcher, joined Hudson and other Braves in predicting a smooth transition to Gonzalez from Cox, who was extremely popular with players.

"First and foremost, he's a Braves guy," Lowe said of Gonzalez. "He knows the organization. Him and Bobby have a great relationship."

Gonzalez inherits a team that won 91 games and went to the postseason, and returns its starting rotation, a deep bullpen, and a lineup that added 30-homer man Dan Uggla --- Gonzalez's former Marlins second baseman.

"Our goal here has never changed --- to win championships," Gonzalez said. "And that's going to continue to be our goal. Anything short of that is not good."

The players believe their team is capable of going further than last year's team, which was slowed by late injuries and lost in the first round of the playoffs to eventual World Series champion San Francisco.

"It's exciting," Lowe said. "I really believe that we have a very good team, and it's a good feeling to have. Because you know you have the talent to do something special. It's clearly up to us.

"There will be a lot of talk probably about how Fredi runs the camp, but that's secondary because it's up to us to go out there and perform the way we should."

Gonzalez said his only goal for the team Tuesday was to avoid injuries. Asked afterward if anyone impressed him, he paused, smiled and said, "[Jairo] Asencio threw a nice slider on the 34th pitch on Field 4. ..."

It was his way of saying he wasn't looking that closely during the first workout. That wasn't the purpose.

The Braves did more basic fielding drills on Day 1 than in recent memory. On at least three fields, pitchers practiced fielding bunts and reacting to various scenarios.

While they won't do that every day, Gonzalez said the Braves would do it plenty. He said the entire team would take more infield practice during the regular season, something recent Braves teams did rarely.

The Braves' 126 errors last season were one fewer than league-worst Washington and Pittsburgh.

"Work on things that we can control," Gonzalez said. "You can't control the broken-bat single or the flare that falls in behind the second baseman. But you can control the bunt defense. You can make sure we get an out. You can control where you're going on cutoffs and relays, the first-and-thirds, the rundowns --- you can control those things.

"Like I told them, I don't care if you give up a two-run homer in the ninth and we lose. But I'll really be upset if you don't know that bunt defense, where you're supposed to be, or you throw it away. That kind of stuff that you control. Sometimes you make a good pitch and a guy hits it out of the ballpark. But if you threw a ball someplace you weren't supposed to throw it, that's where I get upset."

For them, change was good

During Bobby Cox's tenure with the Braves (1990-2010), many other Major League Baseball organizations didn't have the same type of stability. A look at the teams that used the most managers (interim included) during those two decades:

14: Cubs

11: Orioles

10: Royals, Reds

9: Angels, Mariners, Marlins, Mets

8: Astros

Key Braves dates

Saturday: First workout for position players

Feb. 26: Spring training opener vs. New York Mets

March 31: Regular-season opener at Washington Nationals

Philosophy

Wednesday, February 16, 2011