The Inoculating Power of Philosophical Norms

The School of Athens by Raphael

I’ve said before that I believe the Socratic Method to be a fabulous mind inoculant. Here’s one way to see the point: regular exposure to philosophical questioning can instill a sifting frame of mind that activates the mind’s immune system and primes it to be habitually careful and discriminating. I suspect that this makes it one of the more powerful mind inoculants out there: a potent weapon in the battle against nonsense.

I recently read a Substack article by Joseph Heath, an old friend and philosopher at the University of Toronto. In it, he points out that philosophical discussion is structured by several norms that channel thinking in useful ways. Some of these thought-channeling norms make people less likely to be triggered—that is, less likely to overreact to perceived informational threats. In the framework of Mental Immune Systems Theory, this translates into less likely to suffer (a certain kind of) cognitive immune dysfunction.

For example, philosophers are taught to maintain “affective neutrality”—to bracket turbulent emotions when discussing ethics or political philosophy—to better achieve clarity and mutual understanding. The ability to adopt an “affectively neutral” stance when discussing, say, politics, is almost surely an aid to truth-seeking, understanding, dialogical bridge-building, and depolarization efforts.

I think the ability to become affectively neutral is now essential to democratic citizenship. Yet it is rarely taught. In fact, it is learned mostly by osmosis in philosophy graduate programs. (I don't doubt that a good science education confers something analogous; a philosophical education folds in the expectation that we bring such discipline to normative inquiry as well as empirical inquiry: that is, to our understanding of values, not just facts.)

I’m trying to imagine an empirical demonstration of the inoculative powers of affective neutrality norms. If you have ideas or know of existing research, please reach out.

Heath also calls attention to philosophical norms surrounding the practice of defining your terms. When conflicts are rooted in contested language (and many of them are), philosophers are often quick to grasp the need for definitions. For this is just what such circumstances require. Why? Because the right way to proceed in such instances is to allow each party to show how things look when you define X this way rather than that way. Philosophers practice the art of allowing each discussant to define their terms, then trace out their definition’s consequences. Do this habitually, and you learn to see things as others do.

The point goes deeper, though. The resolution of a philosophical vexed issue often takes the form: ‘Your point is valid if we define X this way, and my point is valid if we define it that way. Now that we can see that we each have a piece of the truth, how can we combine our respective insights?’ I have found this to be a fabulous aid to clarity and discursive conflict-resolution. Here we find another skill useful for democratic citizenship, but rarely taught outside of philosophy classrooms.

I think the discipline of philosophy contains dozens of such norms: norms that help people de-escalate conversations and soothe agitated minds.

My vision for cognitive immunology involves translating philosophical wisdom into a deeper understanding of how minds process (and mis-process) challenging information. If you’re a researcher with ideas for how to empirically test these hunches, please reach out, I’d welcome hearing from you.

– Andy

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