Levi on Latour Litanies

Here is Levi’s take on WHY LATOUR LITANIES ARE PHILOSOPHICALLY IMPORTANT.

He’s actually right. When two posts ago I called them a fairly minor stylistic device, what I meant is that they are one rhetorical tool of a certain philosophical standpoint, not the very intellectual pillar of that standpoint.

Every philosophical orientation has its stock rhetorical devices. For instance, people like Ladyman, Ross, and Metzinger accuse their opponents of “armchair” philosophy ad nauseam. It is seldom noted that this is simply a dig, not an argument (the works of scientistic thinkers are surprisingly replete with digs posing as arguments; if you mention “science” enough times, it’s easy to look rigorous even when you serve up one fallacy after another).

And it always bears remembering: rhetoric is not to be confused with “mere rhetoric,” as in “devious speech designed to make the weaker argument appear the stronger.” Rhetoric in the noble sense, which Aristotle defined as an important means of protecting the truth, is simply the art of the background that hides behind every explicit argument or statement.

I distrust all philosophers who are not good rhetoricians. They’re simply bullies who overestimate their own capacity for faultless sequences of remorseless logic.