The positive in the negative

My work has always focused on criticism. In philosophy, I tend not to present new positions or defend novel claims, but to critique other people's claims and point out what I take to be shortcomings in the positions others take, or, in many cases, in the methods they use to arrive at their conclusions.

When I moved over to psychology, I quickly fell into the same routine. I started out running studies, but quickly became more interested in the methods used to conduct studies. It wasn't long before almost all of my work focused on criticizing the methods of contemporary social psychology and experimental philosophy.

Some people aren't too fond of this kind of work. The common refrain is that it's purely destructive. It's not constructive. Useful work, so this thinking goes, adds to our knowledge. It doesn't tear our knowledge down.

This is complete nonsense.

It's just as important to eliminate false beliefs as it is to add true beliefs. In many cases, it is far more important, since the cumulative nature of knowledge builds on the past. If we build poor foundations on false beliefs and bad methods, this can have significant downstream consequences. In some cases, it can lead to years or even decades of wasted time, effort, and resources on what turns out to be a whole lot of nothing.

I suspect one reason people dislike an overly-critical approach is that it seems somehow impolite.

But it may also seem derivative, passive, and reactive. While others are out trying to proactively build something new, I merely follow behind, hoping to pick through the scraps. The constructive researcher is seen as noble and bold and adventurous, plunging into the darkness to retrieve the chalice from the dragon. Meanwhile, us destructive researchers are envious scavengers following in their shadows. Back at the tavern, the bards sing of the constructive researcher's exploits, weaving tales of mighty dragons and cunning sorcerers, while destructive researchers sip their ale in the back of the tavern, bitterly pointing out that the dragon wasn't that mighty, and the sorcerer wasn't that cunning.

This is likely a common sentiment. First, suppose there were truth in this depiction. Suppose, that is, that destructive researchers really are passively waiting to snipe at the constructive researcher's heroics. Well, so what? We may not like the destructive researcher, but we still have to ask: was the dragon really that mighty? Was the sorcerer that cunning? We may even wonder whether there were any dragons or sorcerers at all. Perhaps the hero just scrounged an old cup in the attic. Doesn't it matter if the hero's tale is actually true?

My criticisms focus on both philosophy and psychology. My concerns began with problems in philosophy. Then they became problems in psychology. But now I'm realizing the problems go much deeper. They cut to the heart of academia. Academia has set up a system of incentives and norms that have made the entire structure one of battling to climb to a hill and then defend your place on it. As all the low-hanging fruit was swept up by early advances, researchers have had to carve out ever-tinier areas of specialization, leaving them with no place to go. Where once there was a sprawling new land with room for everyone, now people are crammed into the academic equivalent of a tiny studio apartment, with the walls shrinking every day.

People's careers, identity, finances, and sense of self-worth becomes defined by their little slice of territory. Everything hinges on it. So of course they're going to be defensive and protective. It's all that they have.

But really, it's all that they think they have. There's something liberating and exciting in recognizing that you don't actually have to play this game. You don't have to defend that tiny slice of territory. There is still a lot of room for discovery and insight. With past psychological findings crumbling away and leaving the field in a state of doubt, there's a lot of room for growth in the field.

Analytic philosophy is much the same. It's predicated on dubious methods and mistaken views about how language works. There's plenty of room for insight there, too, if people will take lessons from Wittgenstein and others seriously, and recognize that we have a lot of metaphilosophical room to step out of the confines of a narrow method to discover, and deploy, whole new methods.

It's remarkable that my criticisms are seen as so pessimistic and unwelcome. The way I see my critiques, they're cracks in the walls of the institutional prisons that academics have entombed themselves in.