February 25, 2014 at 2:32 P.M. I was pleased to attend a talk, recently, that was given by my daughter at her beloved alma matter. I believe that parents are always a young person's most important mentors. I am pleased to have introduced my daughter to feminist writers before she attended high school and that she was kind enough to acknowledge the fact (and so much more) in cards and notes to me as well as her mother over the years, and in a conversation after her talk.
Having attended every sporting event and performance (to my knowledge) in her life is a special thrill. I am proud of the adult woman she is still in the process of becoming and hopeful that she will pursue her academic interests, as a graduate student, without losing a sense of identification with others, especially family members, who may be very different from herself.
While I am greatly troubled about and frightened by my child's future challenges, this concern has little to do with her and much to do with the world in which she must live her life and some of the persons in that world. There is great evil all around us which must be opposed and destroyed without ourselves succumbing to evil.
This is evil for which her nation and the world -- not her generation -- bears responsibility. This is to say nothing of the evils closer to home posed by criminals and other undesirable persons, as I have said -- whose humanity must never be forgotten -- despite the horror that they have embraced and become.
I love you, always, my baby. You were (and are) great. I am always at your side, unconditionally, without expectation of return.
Christopher Baxter, "New Round of Subpoenas in Bridge Scandal: Committee to battle hold-outs Kelly, Steplin," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 1. (Legislative committee controlled by Democrats in New Jersey is fishing for information that may be used against Christie in any future elections.)
Ryan Hutchins, "Christie's Attorneys Seek More Records: They request Hoboken mayor's journal and interviews with other city officials," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 13. (Fishing, boys?)
Alex Zehan, "Attorney General's Office Targets Removal of Mayor," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 17. (Removal of the now-convicted Tony Mack is long overdue. Will Dawn Zimmer be next?)
Alyssa Morse, "Bail Maintained in Sexual Assault," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 17. (Thomas Curran, 51, held on bail after sexually assaulting an 11 year-old girl for whom he was providing after-school care in West Windsor, New Jersey. Allegations of Mr. Curran's political "connections" cannot be confirmed at this time.)
Tom Hayden, "Mom Admitted Hurting Child, Authorities Say," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 20. (Raquel Ramirez, 30, physically and otherwise abused her 2 year-old daughter. It cannot be O.K. to commit such crimes because a woman is, or claims to be, a lesbian: "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison" and "Marilyn Straus Was Right!" then "Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest.")
Nelson D. Schwartz, "The Middle Class is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World," The New York Times, February 11, 2014, p. A1. (This is the kind of peril faced by today's college graduates discovering a difficult job market, especially if they have not attended elite schools -- as I did not, initially -- who are seeking to become "successful" today. The economy and world's resources are dwindling very rapidly.)
Marc Santora, "Documents In Scandal Set to Start Pouring In: Christie Inquiry Could Take Weeks," The New York Times, February 3, 2014, p. A14. (More games being played on the banks of the old Raritan.)
Vivian Yee, "Petition Seeking to Void Brooklyn Murder Conviction Calls Verdict a Sham," The New York Times, February 3, 2014, p. A15. (Reversal of conviction based on prosecutor lying, covering-up evidence of innocence, recanting witnesses, and far worse unethical and criminal conduct: "Prosecutorial Misconduct" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" then "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and N.J. Corruption.")
Colin Moynahan, "His Refusal to Testify Wins Freedom For Brooklyn Man," The New York Times, February 4, 2014, p. A18. (Gerald Koch, 24, of Brooklyn, N.Y. cannot be compelled to testify against himself, neither through hypnosis and/or drugging nor torture, not even forced incarceration. Mr. Koch is not cooperating.)
Kimberly Dozier, "U.S. Considering Drone Attack On An American Citizen," The Star Ledger, February 11, 2014, p. 21.
"WASHINGTON -- The case of an American citizen and suspected member of Al Qaeda who is ALLEGEDLY planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas underscores the complexities of President Obama's new stricter targeting guidelines for the use of deadly drones."
Commentators on the questionable legality and ethics of America's drone killing policy find the complications emerging from developments in U.S. practices both bizarre and disturbing, but also absurd. ("America's Drone Murders.")
On the one hand, a U.S. claim to the power to kill by way of a robotic missile any person ("target") located anywhere in the world, for reasons which are not disclosed to anyone -- including the victim -- on the basis of evidence that is also not revealed; and to kill anyone else who just happens to be in the area, as collateral damage (including, recently, an entire wedding party in Pakistan), is absolute.
On the other hand, there is a strict adherence to bureaucratic distinctions governing which governmental agency may do this killing, or when the killing may be done. Procedural and administrative rules are crucial. The value of innocent human lives to be sacrificed is trivial or a non-consideration. ("The Wanderer and His Shadow" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Has this matter been placed in the hands of the IRS? Disdain for international human rights laws is easy. Turf wars among soldiers and spies as well as other officials make things difficult. ("American Lawyers in the Torture Debate" and "The Allegory of the Cave.")
"The CIA drones watching him" -- an American citizen "deemed" dangerous -- "cannot strike because he [the victim to be] is a U.S. citizen. The Pentagon drones that could perform the necessary deed under our mysterious 'rules' are barred from the country where this person is hiding. The Justice Department has not yet finished building a case against him."
The American Constitution requires every person subject to U.S. law, especially American citizens, to receive due process of law before any governmental deprivation of "life, liberty, or property," or even before violating vague and judicially created "fundamental rights," such as the right to privacy, there must be similar restraints on state actions. This will come as news to the NSA. ("NSA Spying Is Illegal.")
There is no official "battlefield" in the country where this person is located, allegedly, also no emergency -- since the U.S. government has been debating, publicly, what to do about this so-called "threat" for months.
The U.S. could seek extradition of this individual, in accordance with international law and treaty obligations, which will allow the Justice Department to have its fun after so many months of preparing a case and indictment.
Such a legal effort would require evidence of guilt to be produced and introduced before a tribunal. Planning or thinking of something in your mind is not criminal guilt.
Secrecy is the enemy of freedom and democracy. Saying that the government "deems" someone to be "potentially dangerous" (whatever that means) is not saying much. There must be an opportunity for the accused to face the evidence, challenge and/or respond to such evidence in a court of law, in addition to being offered the chance to submit countering evidence or explanations before any state violations of autonomy take place. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "How censorship works in America.")
I believe that Senator Paul and Mr. Boehner are "dangerous" and pose a serious threat to our civil liberties as Americans. However, I would not wish to see them injured by a drone weapon, or otherwise harmed, without due process of law.
As Joseph Stalin once explained: "First, we give them a trial; then we shoot them."
It also may not be proper to listen to Americans' phone conversations without a warrant, indiscriminately, nor to the calls of foreign leaders, like Vilma Roussef of Brazil and Vladimir Putin of Russia, not even to Mr. Cameron's calls in the UK, or Ms. Merkel's acknowledgment that her Mercedes Benz had been serviced and was ready to be driven to the Opera. Do we really need to know this stuff, Mr. Obama?
Privacy may be desired by non-Americans as well as American citizens. It may be that persons -- who are not American citizens -- may still be human beings with legal rights in their own countries, including the modest right not to be blown to pieces as collateral damage in an American military effort against "terror." (Again: "America's Drone Murders.")
" ... the president could make an exception to his policy and authorize the CIA to strike on a one-time basis [hoping they won't miss!] or authorize the Pentagon to act despite the possible objections of the country in question."
Mr. Holland will not mind a drone missile landing at the Presidential Palace in Paris, why should other countries mind such a little thing? No reason.
Ignore their objections and thank them for "cooperating" in the war on terror, then nuke them all. That sounds fair.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Robert Brandom's "Reason in Philosophy."
February 20, 2014 at about 2:20 P.M. computer #14 at NYPL, Morningside Heights branch, was frozen, as I was using it, and the mouse became inoperative. The librarian, Ms. Acevedo, was unable to help and noticed that this "paralysis" was highly unusual, as is the frequency with which the printer is deprived of toner (or paper) when I seek to make use of it. Curiously, the same two persons are often seen making many copies immediately before I make use of these devices. There have been several hacks into these public library computers from New Jersey government offices, allegedly. I am sure that this is merely a coincidence.
Has Staci Berger of New Jersey's Housing Authority visited my sites? Has Ms. Berger read any of my writings? Is Ms. Berger a friend of Diana Lisa Riccioli? Alicia Mucci? Barbara Buono? Stuart Rabner? Has Ms. Berger been a source for The New Republic's recent attacks against Mr. Christie? Is the TNR piece on Christie Solomon Dwek's revenge? Is Ms. Berger also "Jennifer Shuessler"? "Jill Ketchum"? ("Marilyn Straus Was Right!" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
I have been told that New York Library cards now expire, automatically, after three years. I have no idea when my card will expire -- or whether I will be given a hard time about renewing it -- in order to prevent me from using public computers. I will try to renew my card if it does expire. If I am denied the use of the library, then you may expect me to continue writing at public Internet cafes as well as with private computers. ("How censorship works in America.")
There are three sections to this essay. I have experienced and anticipate obstructions in efforts to type or post this work. As a result -- since I will not be able to return to the public library until several days from now -- it may be wise to post the first two parts of the text now, leaving the remaining section for when I can return to this facility. I am often prevented from posting new essays from my home. Additional sources and revisions may be added to the work in the days and weeks ahead. I will certainly try to post the full text from my home while fully anticipating that this may be impossible. The size of the type may be altered and other deformations of the text are likely. I will do my best to correct inserted "errors" whenever possible.
The following are the primary sources for this review essay:
Robert Brandom, Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 237 pages.
Reviewed at Mark Okrent, Bates College, Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews.
"Inferential Man," Interview of Robert Brandom by Jeffrey J. Williams, http://www.projectmuse.jhu.edu
The themes that I focus on in commenting on Professor Brandom's book are also found, in very different discussions, in these works:
Alain Badiou, Second Manifesto For Philosophy (London: Polity, 2011).
Alain Badiou, Conditions (London: Continuum, 2008).
John Patrick Diggins, The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism, and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). (Useful on Brandom's sources in the pragmatist tradition, especially the final chapter on Richard Rorty.)
Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1997).
Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).
Colin McGinn, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth Century Philosophy (London: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002).
A.W. Moore, The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (London: Ark, 1962).
Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Penguin, 1992).
Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Robert Nozick, Socratic Puzzles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays: 1972-1980 (Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
John Russon, Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life (New York: SUNY, 2003).
Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest For the Ultimate Nature of Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).
Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).
Bernard Williams, Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002 (Oxford & Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
"I think philosophy is about what it means to be a human being. ... how we are creatures who give and ask for reasons, which is something I understand under the heading of inference."
-- Robert Brandom in conversation with Jeffrey J. Williams.
I.
There are many disturbing reports of decline in enrollment in humanities programs, especially when it comes to philosophy majors in American colleges and universities. Lack of popularity has caused a number of schools to shut down their philosophy departments, offering fewer courses in the subject to their students, while making the acquisition by young people of the necessary training in philosophy that would allow for graduate study virtually impossible.
I have noted elsewhere that there are many expressions of concern by academics and public officials about declining educational achievement among American students graduating -- even from so-called elite liberal arts colleges and university programs -- by comparison with their counterparts in other countries.
Philosophy is not a required subject for American high school students. Sadly, philosophy is also not a subject that is frequently chosen as an elective by most students and/or graduates, not even (as I say) by graduates of the nation's primary liberal arts schools who, presumably, are pursuing related studies in literature, history, science and mathematics, politics, or social studies.
As a result of this absence of basic knowledge of logic and epistemology on the part of most young Americans, avoidable errors in thinking have become more common not only in academic contexts, but also in numerous professional settings. When these errors are combined with declining language skills and literacy -- young people read and write less well than they did even twenty years ago -- the situation becomes highly worrisome for America's future.
A large number of persons whose undergraduate education is in the humanities eventually work for the federal government. This is not a comforting thought. Paradoxically, it is also true that the number of distinguished, even world-level philosophers and logicians at universities and think-tanks in the United States far exceeds the number found in any other nation, including China with its greater population.
America is blessed with more intellectual talent for this subject, philosophy (and many others), than any other nation that I can think of in the world. The waste or loss of great gifts by young people, through lack of opportunity for their development and expression, can only be called tragic.
Americans are so rich in human genius that we throw away minds by the millions not realizing how desperately we may need those minds some day.
I wish to focus in this brief comment, primarily, on one chapter of Brandom's book and the foundations for the discussion in that section of his wonderful and unified collection of essays.
Professor Robert Brandom deserves to be included with the most distinguished American philosophers, past and present, such as Richard Rorty (with whom Brandom studied, eventually editing a collection of essays examining Rorty's work); Brand Blanschard, with whom Brandom also studied at Yale University, and whose Rationalism seems to have remained a lasting influence; also Wilfrid Sellars and other colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, like John McDowell and Nicholas Rescher.
I will capitalize the word "Rationalism" to designate the specific philosophical position associated with a priori knowledge and, historically, with the Cartesian revolution in Western thought.
The Center For the Philosophy of Science and the Department of Philosophy at Pittsburgh have established themselves as comparable to Oxbridge, Harvard, Princeton, or the Soborne in terms of the quality of achievement by professors and students.
This is only one outstanding school in a single American state. It must be unacceptable that so much of the general population -- even students at this same University of Pittsburgh -- may not realize how amazing and important is the scholarship that is emerging in their midst.
Reviews in newspapers of important scholarly works in the humanities and sciences have never been so incompetent or non-comprehending as during recent years. For example, a recent review attributed to Edward Frenkel, "Ad Infinitum," in The New York Times Book Review, February 14, 2014, p. 21 contains this memorable sentence which is far from the worst in the essay: "Any question is answered in one of them, but no one knows which one."
Several initial difficulties facing Brandom's argument should be noted: 1) Brandom's foundational position in logic and epistemology is best classified as a form of Rationalism combined with both pragmatist and analytical commitments in methodology, requiring some explanation; 2) the combination of these commitments with what I take to be a generally idealist stance in metaphysics leads to Brandom's creative use of Kant and Hegel in addition to classical American philosophers. ("Derek Parfit's Ethics" and "What is Enlightenment?")
Brandom's contribution to the logic of conceptual usage is important, but is mostly beyond the scope of my present essay. Brandom sees rationality as integral to human freedom and, accordingly, assigns an important place to philosophy in the construction of selfhood or "what it means to be a person." It is this idea that most interests me. ("Why philosophy is for everybody.")
Classification of Brandom's work immediately raises several difficult issues and opens lines of attack against his philosophy: Rationalism in the twenty-first century implies a confidence in what Spinoza describes as "the unaided powers of reason" that is not only controversial today, but even "dinosaur-like" for many intellectuals, particularly for those sharing my commitments to radical phenomenology and hermeneutics in Continental philosophy, both in America and Europe, or elsewhere. I should note the growing importance of hermeneutics in China, for example, and within Japan's new generation of Kyoto School philosophers. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" and "'Inception': A Movie Review.")
In the aftermath of Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Butler and others, Brandom clings to the quaint notion of a priori truth and logic, coherence, holism, as well as analytical philosophy's standards of clarity and cogency, together with argumentative rigor and proof, for excellent philosophical reasons, which are annoyingly difficult for those of us in the Continental school to refute. ("Hilary Putnam is Keeping It Real" and "Bernard Williams and Identity.")
Brandom is willing to take on the entire existentialist tradition from Kierkegaard to Sartre with its celebrated skepticism about reason as well as ignoring Marxist and Freudian reservations concerning the true source of seemingly objective rational conclusions as a result of, respectively, economic and/or subconscious forms of determinism.
Professor Brandom is willing to sidestep feminist assertions that reason or "Western logos" is "phallocentric" and, thus, not to be trusted. I suggest aligning Brandom's reasoning in this book with Christopher Peacocke's equally elegant and persuasive analytical defense of Rationalism. I will refer to Peacocke's texts later in this essay. ("Carlos Fuentes and Multiculturalism" and "Cornel West On Universality.")
Brandom's rational agents seem to lack any or all gender(s) and/or any racial identity that defines them. This will lead many readers to dismiss Brandom's book as "part of the patriarchy." The stratospheric level of abstraction may well be viewed as disingenuous, at best, if not dishonest after so many leading theorists have devoted decades to demonstrating the "maleness" of the Western philosophical subject. ("Michel Foucault and the Authorship Question" then "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")
Brandom is willing to defend the objectivity of the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4 even if the rational agent performing this calculation is a Latina lesbian attending the New School University in New York. Robert Brandom, "The Significance of Complex Numbers for Frege's Philosophy of Mathematics," Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society, 96 (1996), pp. 293-315.
Brandom argues for confidence in a priori inferences of a familiar sort: I have two friends visiting my home where I live alone, one of whom is a man and the other is a woman. I find the man sitting in my living room and learn that my other guest is visiting the rest room. May I infer, a priori, that the person in my bathroom and/or rest room is, in fact, the woman who is a guest in my home?
Brandom confidently asserts that this is a safe inference that reflects a correct use of a number of concepts, such as "man" and "woman." After Judith Butler's writings, however, we may feel a bit nervous about such confidence on the part of Professor Brandom. ("What you will ..." and "A Doll's Aria.")
With all reservations and deconstructive techniques noted, I tend to agree with Professor Brandom concerning the validity of the a priori inference in this context, as does Oxford's Professor Onora O'Neil and Cambridge's Jennifer Hornsby, I believe, who is now at the University of London. Perhaps even Judith Butler may grant the logical point. True, this fondness for logic -- shared with Miami logician Susan Haack -- may be "demeaning to women." ("Richard Rorty's Ethical Skepticism.")
I begin with a clear definition of Brandom's version of Rationalism and the analytical tradition that is set beside a standard understanding of the "concept." A contrast with the writings of Deleuze and Guattari on conceptual usage in the Continental tradition may be pursued by those who are so-inclined. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 15-117. ("What is a concept?" and "Conceptual Personae.")
This foundational discussion leads to a friendly contrast, also, with radical phenomenological-hermeneutics leading to some questions concerning "rational agency" as distinct from "interpretive rationality" as a philosophical strategy. Common ground is discovered in Brandom's defense of "philosophy as freedom" for persons that mirrors several suggestive arguments offered by Alain Badiou in his Manifestos For Philosophy. I am sure that both of these philosophers are correct concerning the vital importance of, and need for, philosophy today.
II.
" ... philosophy begins in logic." Brandom says: "For as I remarked in the opening sentence of this Introduction, in the broadly rationalist tradition to which this work belongs, philosophy is demarcated by its concern to understand, articulate, explain the notion of reason that distinguishes us as rational animals, discursive, concept-using, sapient beings. Specifically, logical self-consciousness is a matter of being able to make claims and reason about reasoning, about inference and the inferential relations that articulate the contents of non-logical concepts. So logic makes possible already a kind of distinctively philosophically reflection." (Brandom, p. 12, emphasis in original.)
For Brandom, rationality is a normative concept. ("John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
The "space of reasons" is a "normative space," which Brandom believes, leads to a pragmatist order of explanation. My quotation marks are significant as will become evident later in my discussion. This is to account for meaning in terms of use. Brandom postulates that the "rational agent" can abstract the inferential relations that articulate conceptual content from "the reasoning processes and inferential processes of discursive practitioners." (Brandom, p. 12.)
Brandom's analytical commitments seem to be derived from Frege by way of Michael Dummett and to focus on the semantics of rationality: " ... analytical philosophy holds that the true logical content of complex propositions is concealed by ordinary language and can be made clear only by painstaking and reductive analysis of terms."
Ted Hondereich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 28-30.
Rationalism, again, is "any of a variety of views emphasizing the role of reason, usually including intuition, in contrast to sensory experience (including introspection), the feelings, or authority." (Oxford Companion to Philosophy, p. 741.)
By way of comparison, Simon Blackburn offers this definition of Rationalism: "Any philosophy magnifying the role played by unaided reason in the acquisition and justification of knowledge. ... The Continental Rationalists (Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza) are frequently contrasted with the British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume), but such oppositions usually simplify a more complex practice."
Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 318.
The rival options today would not include A.J. Ayer's logical positivism since that position has been left behind by philosophy and science: Bernard Williams, "The Concept of a Person by A.J. Ayer," in Essays and Reviews 1959-2002 (Oxford & Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), pp. 45-47 then Ben Rodgers, A.J. Ayer: A Life (New York: Grove Press, 1999), pp. 118-122.
For an updating of this discussion in a phenomenological form of Rationalism, compare Calvin O. Shrag, The Resources of Rationality: A Response to the Postmodern Challenge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 148-181 with Christopher Peacocke's analytical approach to Rationalism, The Realm of Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), pp. 148-194 and, more generally, Christopher Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).
Classical empiricism is also not an option after the quantum revolution in twentieth century physics as well as Chomsky's linguistics. These developments in intellectual life have made it very clear that the human mind comes with a priori or preformed categories that determine the structures of our language use and possibilities of thought. Mathematical and logical structure is capable of mapping, non-observationally -- even in the absence of sense-data -- aspects of reality strictly on an a priori basis:
" ... this is just another example of what the eminent physicist Eugene Wigner called the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.' [Philosophical logic.] Why should such woolly and abstract concepts as zeta functions or imaginary numbers, the products of a chess game in our minds, have such relevance in describing the world?"
Dennis Ovebye, "Assigning a Value to Infinity: What do you get when you add an infinite series of natural numbers? A Magical Figure," The New York Times, Science Times, February 4, 2014, p. D6.
Not only is there such a thing, apparently, as reliable a priori knowledge, but it seems to serve humanity extremely well in predicting future states of what is called "reality." Please see Quassim Cassam, "Rationalism, Empiricism, and the A Priori," in P. Boghossian & C. Peacocke, eds., New Essays On the A Priori (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) then Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965) and Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), (2nd Ed., with new Preface). Finally, please see Robert Nozick's definition of the "rational man" in Socratic Puzzles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 39-44 and C. Peacocke, "How Are A Priori Truths Possible?," European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 175-199 (1993).
Perhaps the most important discussion of these issues that I have encountered in recent scholarship is found in chapter four of Reason in Philosophy, pages 111-129.
Brandom's defense of philosophy's vital role in the lives of persons and societies comes at a time when conceptual errors and, among other things, philosophical ignorance is producing suffering and waste on a colossal scale. ("Ape and Essence" and "Albert Florence and New Jersey's Racism.")
To mention only one example, billions of dollars are being spent on efforts to "map" the cognitive capacities of the human mind by examining the brain in order to establish "the 'physicalist' basis of consciousness." It may be that this effort is well-founded -- I seriously doubt it -- but it is obvious that very little serious thought has been given by scientists to the numerous, highly controversial and doubtful philosophical assumptions being made concerning the definition and scope of the concepts of mind and consciousness, or the many distinctions to be drawn between these concepts. It is, for instance, taken for granted that consciousness is (or can be) contained in strictly physicalist explanations that ignore, say, culture or history. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")
Another example is found in the continuing A.I. controversy where opposed assumptions are being made by scientists, often the same scientists, concerning "consciousness" which is now seen as an abstract logical algorithm that is capable of being modelled for mechanical intelligence systems or computers. ("Mind and Machine" and "Consciousness and Computers.")
Efforts to create conscious machines, accordingly, involve necessary philosophical assumptions and concepts inherent to whatever programming language is developed by computer scientists unaware that they are making these theoretical assumptions -- assumptions that are often mutually contradictory about concepts that are undefined or poorly understood.
In preparing for Brandom's comments on why philosophy matters, I should make clear his final definition of "rational agency" that leads to a Kantian stance with respect to the normative component of cognitivity. Professor Okrent does the heavy lifting for me on this issue:
"An agent is rational in Brandom's sense just in case she draws inferences in a way that is evaluable according to the inferential role of the concepts involved in those inferences, where the inferential role of a concept is specified in terms of the conditions under which an agent would be entitled to apply, or prohibited from applying, that concept, together with what else an agent would be entitled or committed to by the appropriate application of the concept." (Review of Reason in Philosophy.)
This understanding of rational agency weaves "evaluation" or norms into all cognition, especially philosophical thought in Kantian-Hegelian terms:
"Brandom's Kant holds that an entity is responsible for its judgments and its acts just in case it is capable of taking responsibility for those acts and judgments, Brandom's Kant is committed to the view that the unity of apperception is achieved through a process in which an agent unifies her judgments by coming to believe what she ought to believe (has reason to believe) given her other judgments and the content of the concepts ingredient in those judgments." (Ibid.)
This appears to be a static coherentism, but Brandom adds a social or Hegelian dimension that is much more dynamic:
"Hegel's principal innovation is his idea that in order to follow through on Kant's fundamental insight into the essentially normative character of mind, meaning, and rationality, we need to recognize that normative statuses such as authority and responsibility are at base social statuses." (Brandom, p. 66.)
This move allows Brandom to examine philosophy's importance as one such dynamic and social discipline (nature) with a controversial history.
III.
Brandom begins his discussion of philosophy's meaning and role with this ancient distinction between things that have a nature and things that have a history: Physical objects and entities are usually thought of as possessing a "nature"; cultural formations or practices, such as Romantic poetry and Ponzi schemes, have a "history".
It follows that philosophy, as a cultural phenomenon or form of reason-driven inquiry, is endowed with a unique "nature" or "essence" in the Greek terminology. Philosophy in the Western world is also thought of, parochially, as something beginning in the ancient Mediterrenean world with tentative roots elsewhere, like China and India, or Africa.
In today's ever-smaller and technologically-sophisticated world, Brandom's terms seem especially cramped in these definitions, if not downright insulting to scholars in non-Western societies. Much is simply ommitted from analytical philosophy's consideration in recent discussions to its great loss.
A difficulty that Brandom notices is that this foundational distinction between nature and history is based on, or may be itself a cultural formation with a history. The suggestion, again, is that philosophy -- like its students -- is something with both a nature and history, static and dynamic, Parmenides and/or Heraclitus.
The parallel between philosophy, as an activity, and what is usually called "human nature" is significant to Brandom's later argument in this chapter and, evidently, to much of his work.
For Brandom, now in Hegelian terms, philosophers discern the nature of concepts as revealed by their history. The meaning of concepts is found in their use at different historical moments. An important comparison to the existentialist-hermeneutic definition of concepts, as "metaphors," may be instructive:
"The development of consciousness in human beings is inseparably connected with the use of metaphor. ["Metaphor is Mystery" and "Magician's Choice."] Metaphors are not merely peripheral decorations or even useful models, they are fundamental forms of our awareness of our condition: metaphors of space, metaphors of movement, metaphors of vision. Philosophy in general, and moral philosophy in particular, has in the past often concerned itself with what it took to be our most important images, clarifying existing ones and developing new ones. Philosophical argument consists of such image play."
Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts," in The Sovereignty of Good, p. 77 (emphasis added). Please see: Juan Galis-Menendez, Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Freedom (North Carolina: Lulu, 2004).
Brandom says: "Philosophy is a reflexive enterprise: understanding is not only the goal of philosophical inquiry, but its topic as well. We are its topic; but it is us specifically as understanding creatures: discursive beings, makers and takers of reasons, seekers and speakers of truth. Seeing philosophy as addressing the nature and conditions of our rationality is, of course, a very traditional outlook -- so traditional, indeed, that it is liable to seem quaint and old-fashioned." (Brandom, p. 113.) (Due to deformations of my text by hackers, I was required to remove the italics from Brandom's original text.)
So much for postmodern suspicions (which are also products of the philosophical tradition) where the "determinate contentfulness" of each skeptical doctrine can only be understood in terms of the "process by which it incorporates the contingencies of the particulars to which it has actually been applied." (Brandom, pp. 112-113.)
This is Brandom's point confirmed, in other words, whether or not we regard skeptical reservations concerning logical truth as also applicable to Brandom's philosophy. Brandom's concern is with defective concepts (i.e., "superior" races) which limit our options or deviate thought into blind alleys. ("Is Western Philosophy Racist?")
Such flawed concepts obstruct what and how we are able to "see" or construct reality. Philosophy exposes the commitments implicit in concepts -- makes those commitments explicit -- which are always subject to rational challenge and debate. This leads to one of Brandom's "fusion-insights" that is both analytical and Continental holding that the very idea of a concept is normative:
"Kant replaces the ontological distinction between the physical and the mental with the deontological distinction between things that merely act regularly and things that are subject to distinctively normative sorts of assessments." (Brandom, p. 115.) ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")
Brandom moves from this insight to the observation and argument that motivated me to write this essay.
The following paragraph contains a powerful and, essentially, valid argument communicating an important truth not simply about philosophy or logic, but (more importantly) about persons. This passage is so important, in fact, that it justifies the cost of the book:
"I think that philosophy is the study of us as creatures who judge and act, that is, as discursive, concept-using creatures. And I think that Kant is right to emphasize that understanding what we do in these terms is attributing to us various kinds of normative status, taking us to be subject to distinctive sorts of normative appraisal. So a central philosophical task is understanding this fundamental normative dimension within which we dwell. Kant's own approach to this issue, developing themes from Rousseau, is based on the thought that genuinely normative authority (constraint by norms) is distinguished from causal power (constraint by facts) in that it binds only those who acknowledge it as binding. Because one is subject only to that authority one subjects oneself to, the normative realm can be understood equally as the realm of freedom. So being constrained by norms is not only compatible with freedom -- properly understood, it can be seen to be what freedom consists in. I don't know of a thought that is deeper, more difficult, or more important than this." (Brandom, p. 117.) (Again: "Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom.")
I agree on this issue. This is to suggest that to the extent we think and act at all, we are philosophizing -- even if we are not self-consciously or academically "philosophical." Valuing and truth inheres in all thinking or acting on "reality."
Brandom sees persons as reason-seeking and -giving animals, ordering their experience of reality as a matter of "being" what they are. This necessarily involves norms. I am sure that, as I say, there is a powerful truth articulated in this chapter, yet I am also troubled that something important is excluded from this discussion.
Analytical philosophy often achieves its clarity by avoiding serious difficulties in complex areas of philosophy, like gender-identity or power relations among races and between men and women in society -- areas of philosophy where matters are no so easily reduced to logical puzzles.
I have read several interviews and commentaries on Brandom's writings. His work is certainly important, but it appears distant from so many of the horrors that we live with and struggle against. In an age of such great calamities we may wonder whether philosophers have public responsibilities beyond those of ordinary citizens.
If I were standing at Auschwitz or the killing fields of Cambodia, in Iraq or Afghanistan today -- would I feel the importance of these logical figure-eights?
Brandom may respond that, in posing this very question, I am demonstrating his point concerning the necessary deployment of concepts. He may well be correct in this response. However, this may not be enough of an answer to my criticism.
This very methodological observation may be lost to many readers appreciating the intricacy of Brandom's elegant and subtle abstractions, but unable to share in the discussion. Philosophy must matter in the public square, for the vast majority of people, including those without graduate degrees. Accordingly, I see the explicatory or popularizing role as an important one. Perhaps popularizing is a role that Brandom is content to leave to others, like me, because it is certainly not a role performed in this book.
A related concern is that Brandom may be preaching to the converted. Those of us able to read his book and appreciate his argument are not the persons most in need of understanding him. This is especially true in a commercial and military-minded culture that is increasingly anti-intellectual and impatient with the products of high culture that has chosen to ghettoize or eliminate philosophy, as well as many other academic subjects, from universities and public discourse. ("What is education for?" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
For Brandom, philosophers (like lawyers, he says) are engaged in a collective enterprise of "working pure" the conceptual vocabulary for abstract reflection on ultimate issues of knowledge and ethics or politics, even law, in our society. It is only such foundational concepts that make it appropriate to do (or not to do) something, as a community, as when we decide that an "event" is also a "crime." (Compare "Ronald Dworkin On Law as Interpretation" and "Ronald Dworkin Says: 'The Law Works Itself Pure!'" with "Richard A. Posner On Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")
Brandom's work connects to the writings of Alain Badiou, especially Being and Event. The philosophical task of providing "explanations" for when concepts may be used "appropriately" cannot be discharged well (or at all) if persons are poorly educated in our theoretical tradition governing such matters. For this reason and many others, we need philosophy in the university curriculum and in our public debates.
America is experiencing a crisis concerning its foundational concepts and values, not unlike the Athenian experience before the first great flowering of philosophy. We are uncertain of the relevance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights given the challenges of international terrorism and the realities of the twenty-first century. Resolving such questions and self-doubts, finding our identity, as a nation, at this critical moment in our history and responding to the economic challenge from Asia (whatever else it may be) is a philosophical dilemma as well as a political problem.
Are we prepared to resolve that philosophical dilemma in a manner that includes and meets the needs of all citizens?
Brandom's work is one contribution to thinking well and clearly about such matters, but the answer to this question has yet to be found.
"Analytic philosophy may be seen to have pursued one aspect of Kant's thought, namely, that of showing how phenomenal intuitions could be 'brought under' adequate concepts and thus preserve the basis for a theory of knowledge that would not fall prey to metaphysical illusions."
Christopher Norris comments and adds:
"From the hermeneutic viewpoint, conversely, the project foundered on Kant's inability to explain just how intuitions and concepts could be thought of as somehow 'corresponding' one with another, given their utterly different character. This problem gave rise to some notoriously obscure passages in the 'Transcendental Analytic' where Kant referred to an 'art of judgment' -- an art, moreover, 'buried in the depths of the soul' -- whereby the two orders of phenomenal experience and conceptual understanding might somehow be bridged or reconciled. It was just these passages that Heidegger singled out (in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics) as exposing the limits of Kantian epistemology and revealing a dimension of 'authentic' depth-hermeneutical thought which lay beyond its utmost powers of exposition."
"Epistemology Versus Rational Reconstruction," in Minding the Gap: Epistemology & Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions (Amherst: University of Mass., 2000), p. 8. (The answer to this riddle for philosophers sharing my commitment to phenomenology-hermeneutics is provided in the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur as well as Judith Butler today.)
Has Staci Berger of New Jersey's Housing Authority visited my sites? Has Ms. Berger read any of my writings? Is Ms. Berger a friend of Diana Lisa Riccioli? Alicia Mucci? Barbara Buono? Stuart Rabner? Has Ms. Berger been a source for The New Republic's recent attacks against Mr. Christie? Is the TNR piece on Christie Solomon Dwek's revenge? Is Ms. Berger also "Jennifer Shuessler"? "Jill Ketchum"? ("Marilyn Straus Was Right!" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
I have been told that New York Library cards now expire, automatically, after three years. I have no idea when my card will expire -- or whether I will be given a hard time about renewing it -- in order to prevent me from using public computers. I will try to renew my card if it does expire. If I am denied the use of the library, then you may expect me to continue writing at public Internet cafes as well as with private computers. ("How censorship works in America.")
There are three sections to this essay. I have experienced and anticipate obstructions in efforts to type or post this work. As a result -- since I will not be able to return to the public library until several days from now -- it may be wise to post the first two parts of the text now, leaving the remaining section for when I can return to this facility. I am often prevented from posting new essays from my home. Additional sources and revisions may be added to the work in the days and weeks ahead. I will certainly try to post the full text from my home while fully anticipating that this may be impossible. The size of the type may be altered and other deformations of the text are likely. I will do my best to correct inserted "errors" whenever possible.
The following are the primary sources for this review essay:
Robert Brandom, Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 237 pages.
Reviewed at Mark Okrent, Bates College, Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews.
"Inferential Man," Interview of Robert Brandom by Jeffrey J. Williams, http://www.projectmuse.jhu.edu
The themes that I focus on in commenting on Professor Brandom's book are also found, in very different discussions, in these works:
Alain Badiou, Second Manifesto For Philosophy (London: Polity, 2011).
Alain Badiou, Conditions (London: Continuum, 2008).
John Patrick Diggins, The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism, and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). (Useful on Brandom's sources in the pragmatist tradition, especially the final chapter on Richard Rorty.)
Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
Bryan Magee, Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1997).
Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).
Colin McGinn, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth Century Philosophy (London: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002).
A.W. Moore, The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (London: Ark, 1962).
Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Penguin, 1992).
Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Robert Nozick, Socratic Puzzles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays: 1972-1980 (Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
John Russon, Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life (New York: SUNY, 2003).
Max Tegmark, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest For the Ultimate Nature of Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).
Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).
Bernard Williams, Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002 (Oxford & Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
"I think philosophy is about what it means to be a human being. ... how we are creatures who give and ask for reasons, which is something I understand under the heading of inference."
-- Robert Brandom in conversation with Jeffrey J. Williams.
I.
There are many disturbing reports of decline in enrollment in humanities programs, especially when it comes to philosophy majors in American colleges and universities. Lack of popularity has caused a number of schools to shut down their philosophy departments, offering fewer courses in the subject to their students, while making the acquisition by young people of the necessary training in philosophy that would allow for graduate study virtually impossible.
I have noted elsewhere that there are many expressions of concern by academics and public officials about declining educational achievement among American students graduating -- even from so-called elite liberal arts colleges and university programs -- by comparison with their counterparts in other countries.
Philosophy is not a required subject for American high school students. Sadly, philosophy is also not a subject that is frequently chosen as an elective by most students and/or graduates, not even (as I say) by graduates of the nation's primary liberal arts schools who, presumably, are pursuing related studies in literature, history, science and mathematics, politics, or social studies.
As a result of this absence of basic knowledge of logic and epistemology on the part of most young Americans, avoidable errors in thinking have become more common not only in academic contexts, but also in numerous professional settings. When these errors are combined with declining language skills and literacy -- young people read and write less well than they did even twenty years ago -- the situation becomes highly worrisome for America's future.
A large number of persons whose undergraduate education is in the humanities eventually work for the federal government. This is not a comforting thought. Paradoxically, it is also true that the number of distinguished, even world-level philosophers and logicians at universities and think-tanks in the United States far exceeds the number found in any other nation, including China with its greater population.
America is blessed with more intellectual talent for this subject, philosophy (and many others), than any other nation that I can think of in the world. The waste or loss of great gifts by young people, through lack of opportunity for their development and expression, can only be called tragic.
Americans are so rich in human genius that we throw away minds by the millions not realizing how desperately we may need those minds some day.
I wish to focus in this brief comment, primarily, on one chapter of Brandom's book and the foundations for the discussion in that section of his wonderful and unified collection of essays.
Professor Robert Brandom deserves to be included with the most distinguished American philosophers, past and present, such as Richard Rorty (with whom Brandom studied, eventually editing a collection of essays examining Rorty's work); Brand Blanschard, with whom Brandom also studied at Yale University, and whose Rationalism seems to have remained a lasting influence; also Wilfrid Sellars and other colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, like John McDowell and Nicholas Rescher.
I will capitalize the word "Rationalism" to designate the specific philosophical position associated with a priori knowledge and, historically, with the Cartesian revolution in Western thought.
The Center For the Philosophy of Science and the Department of Philosophy at Pittsburgh have established themselves as comparable to Oxbridge, Harvard, Princeton, or the Soborne in terms of the quality of achievement by professors and students.
This is only one outstanding school in a single American state. It must be unacceptable that so much of the general population -- even students at this same University of Pittsburgh -- may not realize how amazing and important is the scholarship that is emerging in their midst.
Reviews in newspapers of important scholarly works in the humanities and sciences have never been so incompetent or non-comprehending as during recent years. For example, a recent review attributed to Edward Frenkel, "Ad Infinitum," in The New York Times Book Review, February 14, 2014, p. 21 contains this memorable sentence which is far from the worst in the essay: "Any question is answered in one of them, but no one knows which one."
Several initial difficulties facing Brandom's argument should be noted: 1) Brandom's foundational position in logic and epistemology is best classified as a form of Rationalism combined with both pragmatist and analytical commitments in methodology, requiring some explanation; 2) the combination of these commitments with what I take to be a generally idealist stance in metaphysics leads to Brandom's creative use of Kant and Hegel in addition to classical American philosophers. ("Derek Parfit's Ethics" and "What is Enlightenment?")
Brandom's contribution to the logic of conceptual usage is important, but is mostly beyond the scope of my present essay. Brandom sees rationality as integral to human freedom and, accordingly, assigns an important place to philosophy in the construction of selfhood or "what it means to be a person." It is this idea that most interests me. ("Why philosophy is for everybody.")
Classification of Brandom's work immediately raises several difficult issues and opens lines of attack against his philosophy: Rationalism in the twenty-first century implies a confidence in what Spinoza describes as "the unaided powers of reason" that is not only controversial today, but even "dinosaur-like" for many intellectuals, particularly for those sharing my commitments to radical phenomenology and hermeneutics in Continental philosophy, both in America and Europe, or elsewhere. I should note the growing importance of hermeneutics in China, for example, and within Japan's new generation of Kyoto School philosophers. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" and "'Inception': A Movie Review.")
In the aftermath of Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Butler and others, Brandom clings to the quaint notion of a priori truth and logic, coherence, holism, as well as analytical philosophy's standards of clarity and cogency, together with argumentative rigor and proof, for excellent philosophical reasons, which are annoyingly difficult for those of us in the Continental school to refute. ("Hilary Putnam is Keeping It Real" and "Bernard Williams and Identity.")
Brandom is willing to take on the entire existentialist tradition from Kierkegaard to Sartre with its celebrated skepticism about reason as well as ignoring Marxist and Freudian reservations concerning the true source of seemingly objective rational conclusions as a result of, respectively, economic and/or subconscious forms of determinism.
Professor Brandom is willing to sidestep feminist assertions that reason or "Western logos" is "phallocentric" and, thus, not to be trusted. I suggest aligning Brandom's reasoning in this book with Christopher Peacocke's equally elegant and persuasive analytical defense of Rationalism. I will refer to Peacocke's texts later in this essay. ("Carlos Fuentes and Multiculturalism" and "Cornel West On Universality.")
Brandom's rational agents seem to lack any or all gender(s) and/or any racial identity that defines them. This will lead many readers to dismiss Brandom's book as "part of the patriarchy." The stratospheric level of abstraction may well be viewed as disingenuous, at best, if not dishonest after so many leading theorists have devoted decades to demonstrating the "maleness" of the Western philosophical subject. ("Michel Foucault and the Authorship Question" then "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")
Brandom is willing to defend the objectivity of the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4 even if the rational agent performing this calculation is a Latina lesbian attending the New School University in New York. Robert Brandom, "The Significance of Complex Numbers for Frege's Philosophy of Mathematics," Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society, 96 (1996), pp. 293-315.
Brandom argues for confidence in a priori inferences of a familiar sort: I have two friends visiting my home where I live alone, one of whom is a man and the other is a woman. I find the man sitting in my living room and learn that my other guest is visiting the rest room. May I infer, a priori, that the person in my bathroom and/or rest room is, in fact, the woman who is a guest in my home?
Brandom confidently asserts that this is a safe inference that reflects a correct use of a number of concepts, such as "man" and "woman." After Judith Butler's writings, however, we may feel a bit nervous about such confidence on the part of Professor Brandom. ("What you will ..." and "A Doll's Aria.")
With all reservations and deconstructive techniques noted, I tend to agree with Professor Brandom concerning the validity of the a priori inference in this context, as does Oxford's Professor Onora O'Neil and Cambridge's Jennifer Hornsby, I believe, who is now at the University of London. Perhaps even Judith Butler may grant the logical point. True, this fondness for logic -- shared with Miami logician Susan Haack -- may be "demeaning to women." ("Richard Rorty's Ethical Skepticism.")
I begin with a clear definition of Brandom's version of Rationalism and the analytical tradition that is set beside a standard understanding of the "concept." A contrast with the writings of Deleuze and Guattari on conceptual usage in the Continental tradition may be pursued by those who are so-inclined. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 15-117. ("What is a concept?" and "Conceptual Personae.")
This foundational discussion leads to a friendly contrast, also, with radical phenomenological-hermeneutics leading to some questions concerning "rational agency" as distinct from "interpretive rationality" as a philosophical strategy. Common ground is discovered in Brandom's defense of "philosophy as freedom" for persons that mirrors several suggestive arguments offered by Alain Badiou in his Manifestos For Philosophy. I am sure that both of these philosophers are correct concerning the vital importance of, and need for, philosophy today.
II.
" ... philosophy begins in logic." Brandom says: "For as I remarked in the opening sentence of this Introduction, in the broadly rationalist tradition to which this work belongs, philosophy is demarcated by its concern to understand, articulate, explain the notion of reason that distinguishes us as rational animals, discursive, concept-using, sapient beings. Specifically, logical self-consciousness is a matter of being able to make claims and reason about reasoning, about inference and the inferential relations that articulate the contents of non-logical concepts. So logic makes possible already a kind of distinctively philosophically reflection." (Brandom, p. 12, emphasis in original.)
For Brandom, rationality is a normative concept. ("John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")
The "space of reasons" is a "normative space," which Brandom believes, leads to a pragmatist order of explanation. My quotation marks are significant as will become evident later in my discussion. This is to account for meaning in terms of use. Brandom postulates that the "rational agent" can abstract the inferential relations that articulate conceptual content from "the reasoning processes and inferential processes of discursive practitioners." (Brandom, p. 12.)
Brandom's analytical commitments seem to be derived from Frege by way of Michael Dummett and to focus on the semantics of rationality: " ... analytical philosophy holds that the true logical content of complex propositions is concealed by ordinary language and can be made clear only by painstaking and reductive analysis of terms."
Ted Hondereich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 28-30.
Rationalism, again, is "any of a variety of views emphasizing the role of reason, usually including intuition, in contrast to sensory experience (including introspection), the feelings, or authority." (Oxford Companion to Philosophy, p. 741.)
By way of comparison, Simon Blackburn offers this definition of Rationalism: "Any philosophy magnifying the role played by unaided reason in the acquisition and justification of knowledge. ... The Continental Rationalists (Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza) are frequently contrasted with the British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume), but such oppositions usually simplify a more complex practice."
Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 318.
The rival options today would not include A.J. Ayer's logical positivism since that position has been left behind by philosophy and science: Bernard Williams, "The Concept of a Person by A.J. Ayer," in Essays and Reviews 1959-2002 (Oxford & Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), pp. 45-47 then Ben Rodgers, A.J. Ayer: A Life (New York: Grove Press, 1999), pp. 118-122.
For an updating of this discussion in a phenomenological form of Rationalism, compare Calvin O. Shrag, The Resources of Rationality: A Response to the Postmodern Challenge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 148-181 with Christopher Peacocke's analytical approach to Rationalism, The Realm of Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), pp. 148-194 and, more generally, Christopher Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).
Classical empiricism is also not an option after the quantum revolution in twentieth century physics as well as Chomsky's linguistics. These developments in intellectual life have made it very clear that the human mind comes with a priori or preformed categories that determine the structures of our language use and possibilities of thought. Mathematical and logical structure is capable of mapping, non-observationally -- even in the absence of sense-data -- aspects of reality strictly on an a priori basis:
" ... this is just another example of what the eminent physicist Eugene Wigner called the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.' [Philosophical logic.] Why should such woolly and abstract concepts as zeta functions or imaginary numbers, the products of a chess game in our minds, have such relevance in describing the world?"
Dennis Ovebye, "Assigning a Value to Infinity: What do you get when you add an infinite series of natural numbers? A Magical Figure," The New York Times, Science Times, February 4, 2014, p. D6.
Not only is there such a thing, apparently, as reliable a priori knowledge, but it seems to serve humanity extremely well in predicting future states of what is called "reality." Please see Quassim Cassam, "Rationalism, Empiricism, and the A Priori," in P. Boghossian & C. Peacocke, eds., New Essays On the A Priori (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) then Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965) and Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), (2nd Ed., with new Preface). Finally, please see Robert Nozick's definition of the "rational man" in Socratic Puzzles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 39-44 and C. Peacocke, "How Are A Priori Truths Possible?," European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 175-199 (1993).
Perhaps the most important discussion of these issues that I have encountered in recent scholarship is found in chapter four of Reason in Philosophy, pages 111-129.
Brandom's defense of philosophy's vital role in the lives of persons and societies comes at a time when conceptual errors and, among other things, philosophical ignorance is producing suffering and waste on a colossal scale. ("Ape and Essence" and "Albert Florence and New Jersey's Racism.")
To mention only one example, billions of dollars are being spent on efforts to "map" the cognitive capacities of the human mind by examining the brain in order to establish "the 'physicalist' basis of consciousness." It may be that this effort is well-founded -- I seriously doubt it -- but it is obvious that very little serious thought has been given by scientists to the numerous, highly controversial and doubtful philosophical assumptions being made concerning the definition and scope of the concepts of mind and consciousness, or the many distinctions to be drawn between these concepts. It is, for instance, taken for granted that consciousness is (or can be) contained in strictly physicalist explanations that ignore, say, culture or history. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")
Another example is found in the continuing A.I. controversy where opposed assumptions are being made by scientists, often the same scientists, concerning "consciousness" which is now seen as an abstract logical algorithm that is capable of being modelled for mechanical intelligence systems or computers. ("Mind and Machine" and "Consciousness and Computers.")
Efforts to create conscious machines, accordingly, involve necessary philosophical assumptions and concepts inherent to whatever programming language is developed by computer scientists unaware that they are making these theoretical assumptions -- assumptions that are often mutually contradictory about concepts that are undefined or poorly understood.
In preparing for Brandom's comments on why philosophy matters, I should make clear his final definition of "rational agency" that leads to a Kantian stance with respect to the normative component of cognitivity. Professor Okrent does the heavy lifting for me on this issue:
"An agent is rational in Brandom's sense just in case she draws inferences in a way that is evaluable according to the inferential role of the concepts involved in those inferences, where the inferential role of a concept is specified in terms of the conditions under which an agent would be entitled to apply, or prohibited from applying, that concept, together with what else an agent would be entitled or committed to by the appropriate application of the concept." (Review of Reason in Philosophy.)
This understanding of rational agency weaves "evaluation" or norms into all cognition, especially philosophical thought in Kantian-Hegelian terms:
"Brandom's Kant holds that an entity is responsible for its judgments and its acts just in case it is capable of taking responsibility for those acts and judgments, Brandom's Kant is committed to the view that the unity of apperception is achieved through a process in which an agent unifies her judgments by coming to believe what she ought to believe (has reason to believe) given her other judgments and the content of the concepts ingredient in those judgments." (Ibid.)
This appears to be a static coherentism, but Brandom adds a social or Hegelian dimension that is much more dynamic:
"Hegel's principal innovation is his idea that in order to follow through on Kant's fundamental insight into the essentially normative character of mind, meaning, and rationality, we need to recognize that normative statuses such as authority and responsibility are at base social statuses." (Brandom, p. 66.)
This move allows Brandom to examine philosophy's importance as one such dynamic and social discipline (nature) with a controversial history.
III.
Brandom begins his discussion of philosophy's meaning and role with this ancient distinction between things that have a nature and things that have a history: Physical objects and entities are usually thought of as possessing a "nature"; cultural formations or practices, such as Romantic poetry and Ponzi schemes, have a "history".
It follows that philosophy, as a cultural phenomenon or form of reason-driven inquiry, is endowed with a unique "nature" or "essence" in the Greek terminology. Philosophy in the Western world is also thought of, parochially, as something beginning in the ancient Mediterrenean world with tentative roots elsewhere, like China and India, or Africa.
In today's ever-smaller and technologically-sophisticated world, Brandom's terms seem especially cramped in these definitions, if not downright insulting to scholars in non-Western societies. Much is simply ommitted from analytical philosophy's consideration in recent discussions to its great loss.
A difficulty that Brandom notices is that this foundational distinction between nature and history is based on, or may be itself a cultural formation with a history. The suggestion, again, is that philosophy -- like its students -- is something with both a nature and history, static and dynamic, Parmenides and/or Heraclitus.
The parallel between philosophy, as an activity, and what is usually called "human nature" is significant to Brandom's later argument in this chapter and, evidently, to much of his work.
For Brandom, now in Hegelian terms, philosophers discern the nature of concepts as revealed by their history. The meaning of concepts is found in their use at different historical moments. An important comparison to the existentialist-hermeneutic definition of concepts, as "metaphors," may be instructive:
"The development of consciousness in human beings is inseparably connected with the use of metaphor. ["Metaphor is Mystery" and "Magician's Choice."] Metaphors are not merely peripheral decorations or even useful models, they are fundamental forms of our awareness of our condition: metaphors of space, metaphors of movement, metaphors of vision. Philosophy in general, and moral philosophy in particular, has in the past often concerned itself with what it took to be our most important images, clarifying existing ones and developing new ones. Philosophical argument consists of such image play."
Iris Murdoch, "The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts," in The Sovereignty of Good, p. 77 (emphasis added). Please see: Juan Galis-Menendez, Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Freedom (North Carolina: Lulu, 2004).
Brandom says: "Philosophy is a reflexive enterprise: understanding is not only the goal of philosophical inquiry, but its topic as well. We are its topic; but it is us specifically as understanding creatures: discursive beings, makers and takers of reasons, seekers and speakers of truth. Seeing philosophy as addressing the nature and conditions of our rationality is, of course, a very traditional outlook -- so traditional, indeed, that it is liable to seem quaint and old-fashioned." (Brandom, p. 113.) (Due to deformations of my text by hackers, I was required to remove the italics from Brandom's original text.)
So much for postmodern suspicions (which are also products of the philosophical tradition) where the "determinate contentfulness" of each skeptical doctrine can only be understood in terms of the "process by which it incorporates the contingencies of the particulars to which it has actually been applied." (Brandom, pp. 112-113.)
This is Brandom's point confirmed, in other words, whether or not we regard skeptical reservations concerning logical truth as also applicable to Brandom's philosophy. Brandom's concern is with defective concepts (i.e., "superior" races) which limit our options or deviate thought into blind alleys. ("Is Western Philosophy Racist?")
Such flawed concepts obstruct what and how we are able to "see" or construct reality. Philosophy exposes the commitments implicit in concepts -- makes those commitments explicit -- which are always subject to rational challenge and debate. This leads to one of Brandom's "fusion-insights" that is both analytical and Continental holding that the very idea of a concept is normative:
"Kant replaces the ontological distinction between the physical and the mental with the deontological distinction between things that merely act regularly and things that are subject to distinctively normative sorts of assessments." (Brandom, p. 115.) ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")
Brandom moves from this insight to the observation and argument that motivated me to write this essay.
The following paragraph contains a powerful and, essentially, valid argument communicating an important truth not simply about philosophy or logic, but (more importantly) about persons. This passage is so important, in fact, that it justifies the cost of the book:
"I think that philosophy is the study of us as creatures who judge and act, that is, as discursive, concept-using creatures. And I think that Kant is right to emphasize that understanding what we do in these terms is attributing to us various kinds of normative status, taking us to be subject to distinctive sorts of normative appraisal. So a central philosophical task is understanding this fundamental normative dimension within which we dwell. Kant's own approach to this issue, developing themes from Rousseau, is based on the thought that genuinely normative authority (constraint by norms) is distinguished from causal power (constraint by facts) in that it binds only those who acknowledge it as binding. Because one is subject only to that authority one subjects oneself to, the normative realm can be understood equally as the realm of freedom. So being constrained by norms is not only compatible with freedom -- properly understood, it can be seen to be what freedom consists in. I don't know of a thought that is deeper, more difficult, or more important than this." (Brandom, p. 117.) (Again: "Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom.")
I agree on this issue. This is to suggest that to the extent we think and act at all, we are philosophizing -- even if we are not self-consciously or academically "philosophical." Valuing and truth inheres in all thinking or acting on "reality."
Brandom sees persons as reason-seeking and -giving animals, ordering their experience of reality as a matter of "being" what they are. This necessarily involves norms. I am sure that, as I say, there is a powerful truth articulated in this chapter, yet I am also troubled that something important is excluded from this discussion.
Analytical philosophy often achieves its clarity by avoiding serious difficulties in complex areas of philosophy, like gender-identity or power relations among races and between men and women in society -- areas of philosophy where matters are no so easily reduced to logical puzzles.
I have read several interviews and commentaries on Brandom's writings. His work is certainly important, but it appears distant from so many of the horrors that we live with and struggle against. In an age of such great calamities we may wonder whether philosophers have public responsibilities beyond those of ordinary citizens.
If I were standing at Auschwitz or the killing fields of Cambodia, in Iraq or Afghanistan today -- would I feel the importance of these logical figure-eights?
Brandom may respond that, in posing this very question, I am demonstrating his point concerning the necessary deployment of concepts. He may well be correct in this response. However, this may not be enough of an answer to my criticism.
This very methodological observation may be lost to many readers appreciating the intricacy of Brandom's elegant and subtle abstractions, but unable to share in the discussion. Philosophy must matter in the public square, for the vast majority of people, including those without graduate degrees. Accordingly, I see the explicatory or popularizing role as an important one. Perhaps popularizing is a role that Brandom is content to leave to others, like me, because it is certainly not a role performed in this book.
A related concern is that Brandom may be preaching to the converted. Those of us able to read his book and appreciate his argument are not the persons most in need of understanding him. This is especially true in a commercial and military-minded culture that is increasingly anti-intellectual and impatient with the products of high culture that has chosen to ghettoize or eliminate philosophy, as well as many other academic subjects, from universities and public discourse. ("What is education for?" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
For Brandom, philosophers (like lawyers, he says) are engaged in a collective enterprise of "working pure" the conceptual vocabulary for abstract reflection on ultimate issues of knowledge and ethics or politics, even law, in our society. It is only such foundational concepts that make it appropriate to do (or not to do) something, as a community, as when we decide that an "event" is also a "crime." (Compare "Ronald Dworkin On Law as Interpretation" and "Ronald Dworkin Says: 'The Law Works Itself Pure!'" with "Richard A. Posner On Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")
Brandom's work connects to the writings of Alain Badiou, especially Being and Event. The philosophical task of providing "explanations" for when concepts may be used "appropriately" cannot be discharged well (or at all) if persons are poorly educated in our theoretical tradition governing such matters. For this reason and many others, we need philosophy in the university curriculum and in our public debates.
America is experiencing a crisis concerning its foundational concepts and values, not unlike the Athenian experience before the first great flowering of philosophy. We are uncertain of the relevance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights given the challenges of international terrorism and the realities of the twenty-first century. Resolving such questions and self-doubts, finding our identity, as a nation, at this critical moment in our history and responding to the economic challenge from Asia (whatever else it may be) is a philosophical dilemma as well as a political problem.
Are we prepared to resolve that philosophical dilemma in a manner that includes and meets the needs of all citizens?
Brandom's work is one contribution to thinking well and clearly about such matters, but the answer to this question has yet to be found.
"Analytic philosophy may be seen to have pursued one aspect of Kant's thought, namely, that of showing how phenomenal intuitions could be 'brought under' adequate concepts and thus preserve the basis for a theory of knowledge that would not fall prey to metaphysical illusions."
Christopher Norris comments and adds:
"From the hermeneutic viewpoint, conversely, the project foundered on Kant's inability to explain just how intuitions and concepts could be thought of as somehow 'corresponding' one with another, given their utterly different character. This problem gave rise to some notoriously obscure passages in the 'Transcendental Analytic' where Kant referred to an 'art of judgment' -- an art, moreover, 'buried in the depths of the soul' -- whereby the two orders of phenomenal experience and conceptual understanding might somehow be bridged or reconciled. It was just these passages that Heidegger singled out (in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics) as exposing the limits of Kantian epistemology and revealing a dimension of 'authentic' depth-hermeneutical thought which lay beyond its utmost powers of exposition."
"Epistemology Versus Rational Reconstruction," in Minding the Gap: Epistemology & Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions (Amherst: University of Mass., 2000), p. 8. (The answer to this riddle for philosophers sharing my commitment to phenomenology-hermeneutics is provided in the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur as well as Judith Butler today.)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Trenton Mayor Guilty of Corruption.
February 12, 2014 at 8:55 A.M. As I type these words Delphine Halgand of Reporters Without Borders is stating on Democracy Now, which is seen in Cuba, that the U.S. is ranked in the World Press Freedom Index for 2014 as 46th out of 80 nations in terms of press or expressive freedom for dissidents, like me. I am among the persons whose rights are monitored by such international organizations: I renew my requests for the truth about the tortures to which I have been subjected by New Jersey officials and persons. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Mark Mazetti & Eric Shmidtt, "U.S. Debates Drone Strike On American," The New York Times, February 11, 2014, p. A1. (U.S. may kill or murder an American citizen in Pakistan without charges, or hearings, and without communicating the reasons or evidence for this action to the person to be destroyed. Is this decision as important as a traffic jam at the GW bridge?)
February 11, 2014 at 8:01 P.M. As I type these words, there are reports of new requests for information being made of Hoboken's mayor and, allegedly, of The New York Times in connection with the GWB probe and inquiry as well as other matters.
Salvador Rizzo, "In Joint Probe, Partisan Divide," The Star Ledger, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (It looks like Christie will live through this.)
Jenna Portnoy, "Samson: Success, Power and Clout -- His Judgment Defended After Bridge Subpoena," The Star Ledger, January 30, 2014, p. 1. (David Samson, Esq. is a Republican "mouthpiece" who takes "care of" Christie and other "big shots" who are taking care of him. The notoriously "connected" law firm of "Wolf and Samson" has milked N.J. government for $8.4 MILLION in fees last year. Socialism for rich lawyers who are friendly with Mr. Rabner; poverty for New Jersey's residents. The word on the street is that Mr. Rabner will NOT be reappointed as Chief Justice in June, 2014 if Christie is still governor. Maybe my situation will be "fixed" when Rabner leaves the judiciary and can no longer protect his "friends" and co-religionists: "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
Salvador Rizzo, "Ex-Christie Lawyer Will Lead Ethics Probes: Choice For State Watchdog Agency Raises Questions," The Star Ledger, January 30, 2014, p. 13. (Susana Guerrero, Esq., is a Marco Rubio, Iliana Ros-Leghtinen, and Bob Menendez "Cubanaza," allegedly. Cuban American National Foundation, "Susanita"?)
Shawn Boburg, "Ex-Aide Says Christie Knew: Wildstein Maintains Evidence Exists On GWB Lane Closures," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1. (David Wildstein, Terry Tuchin's political "Godfather" -- or one of them -- says "Christie was in on it." How about Mr. Netanyahu?)
Erin O'Neill, "Volunteer Admits Theft From POP Warner: Jackson Man Must Repay Stolen Funds to Regional Organization, but Tally Disputed," The Star Ledger, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (A possible political component is left out of this story. Some of the money "just went," says "Fat Tony," but he doesn't know where.)
Melissa Hayes, "Hoboken Says It's Complying With U.S. Attorney Inquiry: Records Subpoenaed Friday," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-6. (Dawn Zimmer may have accepted bribes and/or kickbacks. Shocking.)
Melissa Hayes & Shawn Boburg, "Feds Seek Files From Office of the Governor: Ex-Staff Member Won't Cooperate With Subpoena," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-1. (Bridget Ann Kelly says: "I don't know from nothing!")
Charles Stile, "If Denial Was a Lie, His Career is in Tatters: This Could be Christie's Toughest Political Fight," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1. (Would Christie be that stupid to put it in writing?)
Alexandra Petri, "Grimm Apology for Unseemly Behavior," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-9. (Michael Grimm, R, displays what Diana Lisa Riccioli calls: "male aggression pattern.")
Mathew McGrath & Jim Norman, "N.J. Trooper Charged in Shoplifting at Pa. Store: Allegedly Tried to Use Position to Get a Break," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-3. (Shame on you, Col. Rick Fuentes of the New Jersey State Police.)
AP, "Mayor of Trenton Is Found Guilty of Taking Bribes," The New York Times, February 8, 2014, p. A14.
"A federal jury found that the mayor [sic.] of Trenton" -- John McGill, Esq.'s political "godfather"? -- "Tony F. Mack, and his brother, Raphiel, [sic.] had participated in a scheme to take money in exchange for helping get approvals to develop a downtown parking garage. The deal was fictitious and part of a government investigation." ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
Trenton, fittingly enough, is New Jersey's capitol city. The place is an utterly devastated landscape that makes Newark look like Paris. Politicians are "for sale" and empty industrial parks as well as urban war zones serve as backdrops for drug deals, prostitution, and the state's ubiquitous public corruption. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
All of this charming activity is visible from the windows of the New Jersey Supreme Court's building. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
New Jersey's tribunals have fostered these evils, sometimes through well-intentioned -- if incompetent -- efforts at social engineering from the bench; at other times, through judicial corruption, stupidity, together with a willingness to cover-up atrocities and accept bribes. ("New Jersey's Judges Disgrace America" and "New Jersey Supreme Court's Implosion" then "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "No More Lies and Cover-Ups, Chief Justice Rabner!")
"The mayor, a Democrat, was convicted of official extortion conspiracy, of attempted extortion, accepting bribes, mail fraud and wire fraud. Raphiel Mack was convicted on the extortion and bribery counts but acquitted on the others."
This has become a routine story: bribery, organized crime affiliations among Democrats serving in high office in New Jersey, allegations of drug use, purchasing the services of prostitutes, and worse activities that do not seem to interest the liberal media. The Times ran the story of Trenton's mayor in an inside page with an "AP" byline.
I wonder why they don't care about Democrat corruption at that bastion of objective and neutral journalism that is The New York Times? Ms. Zernike, Ms. Kolbert, Ms. Abramson and Ms. Maddow -- none of you seems very interested in this news item which may also have resulted in a traffic jam on the Turnpike. ("Christie's Bridge of Sighs" and "The Teflon Governor.")
Allegations of very serious corruption against Mr. Menendez -- the chairperson of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee -- are not receiving coverage whereas the bridge scandal generates outrage at the "Gray Lady." ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
"Mr. Mack has remained in office since his arrest more than two years ago. Since 2000, mayors of the New Jersey communities [all Democrats!] Asbury Park, Camden, Hamilton, Hoboken, Newark, Orange, among others have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in corruption cases." ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Bribery in Union City, New Jersey.")
Dawn Zimmer may soon be joining this distinguished company of indicted New Jersey mayors. I notice that The New York Times has no reporter covering the scandal currently brewing around Ms. Zimmer, nor investigating her possible political motivations for the attacks against Mr. Christie, and shifting coverage of persons, like Mr. Wildstein -- former mayor of Livingston, New Jersey and friend of Terry Tuchin -- to New Jersey "insiders." ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")
Was there no fictitious byline that might be assigned to these Jersey scandals? Jennifer Shuessler? Manohla Dargis? "Anemona Hartocolis"? What else -- besides the bylines -- is fictitious at The New York Times? Is this about "payola" for journalists? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
" ... prosecutors portrayed the mayor as an eager participant in the bribery scheme. They said he agreed to sell city-owned property -- assessed for well over $200,000 for just $100,000 in exchange for bribes." ("Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House!" then "Cement is Gold.")
Any number of local officials would also have "dipped their wicks" if this deal had gone through. They're all upset. Jeez. Nothing is easy no more. (Again: "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Law and Politics.")
The money would certainly have spread to judges on a political leash in the event of a legal challenge to the sweetheart terms and everything would have been fixed. The feds -- who suffer from a lack of humor about such shenanigans -- have spoiled everybody's fun, again. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana.")
A number of law firms that "facilitated these transactions" have lost out on the big paydays that would have resulted if the deals went through. ("Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics" and "New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit" then "New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce.")
"The authorities said that $54,000 was passed to Joseph A. Giorgianni -- a Trenton restaurant owner and political deal maker known as 'Jo-Jo,' who pleaded guilty in the case last year -- in 2011 and 2012 and that an additional $65,000 was agreed on. He was to pass the money to the mayor, authorities said." ("Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!")
Mr. Rabner was shocked to learn of Mr. Giorgianni's involvement asking: "Now where do I go for my linguini?"
Mark Mazetti & Eric Shmidtt, "U.S. Debates Drone Strike On American," The New York Times, February 11, 2014, p. A1. (U.S. may kill or murder an American citizen in Pakistan without charges, or hearings, and without communicating the reasons or evidence for this action to the person to be destroyed. Is this decision as important as a traffic jam at the GW bridge?)
February 11, 2014 at 8:01 P.M. As I type these words, there are reports of new requests for information being made of Hoboken's mayor and, allegedly, of The New York Times in connection with the GWB probe and inquiry as well as other matters.
Salvador Rizzo, "In Joint Probe, Partisan Divide," The Star Ledger, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (It looks like Christie will live through this.)
Jenna Portnoy, "Samson: Success, Power and Clout -- His Judgment Defended After Bridge Subpoena," The Star Ledger, January 30, 2014, p. 1. (David Samson, Esq. is a Republican "mouthpiece" who takes "care of" Christie and other "big shots" who are taking care of him. The notoriously "connected" law firm of "Wolf and Samson" has milked N.J. government for $8.4 MILLION in fees last year. Socialism for rich lawyers who are friendly with Mr. Rabner; poverty for New Jersey's residents. The word on the street is that Mr. Rabner will NOT be reappointed as Chief Justice in June, 2014 if Christie is still governor. Maybe my situation will be "fixed" when Rabner leaves the judiciary and can no longer protect his "friends" and co-religionists: "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")
Salvador Rizzo, "Ex-Christie Lawyer Will Lead Ethics Probes: Choice For State Watchdog Agency Raises Questions," The Star Ledger, January 30, 2014, p. 13. (Susana Guerrero, Esq., is a Marco Rubio, Iliana Ros-Leghtinen, and Bob Menendez "Cubanaza," allegedly. Cuban American National Foundation, "Susanita"?)
Shawn Boburg, "Ex-Aide Says Christie Knew: Wildstein Maintains Evidence Exists On GWB Lane Closures," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1. (David Wildstein, Terry Tuchin's political "Godfather" -- or one of them -- says "Christie was in on it." How about Mr. Netanyahu?)
Erin O'Neill, "Volunteer Admits Theft From POP Warner: Jackson Man Must Repay Stolen Funds to Regional Organization, but Tally Disputed," The Star Ledger, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (A possible political component is left out of this story. Some of the money "just went," says "Fat Tony," but he doesn't know where.)
Melissa Hayes, "Hoboken Says It's Complying With U.S. Attorney Inquiry: Records Subpoenaed Friday," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-6. (Dawn Zimmer may have accepted bribes and/or kickbacks. Shocking.)
Melissa Hayes & Shawn Boburg, "Feds Seek Files From Office of the Governor: Ex-Staff Member Won't Cooperate With Subpoena," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-1. (Bridget Ann Kelly says: "I don't know from nothing!")
Charles Stile, "If Denial Was a Lie, His Career is in Tatters: This Could be Christie's Toughest Political Fight," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1. (Would Christie be that stupid to put it in writing?)
Alexandra Petri, "Grimm Apology for Unseemly Behavior," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-9. (Michael Grimm, R, displays what Diana Lisa Riccioli calls: "male aggression pattern.")
Mathew McGrath & Jim Norman, "N.J. Trooper Charged in Shoplifting at Pa. Store: Allegedly Tried to Use Position to Get a Break," The Record, February 4, 2014, p. A-3. (Shame on you, Col. Rick Fuentes of the New Jersey State Police.)
AP, "Mayor of Trenton Is Found Guilty of Taking Bribes," The New York Times, February 8, 2014, p. A14.
"A federal jury found that the mayor [sic.] of Trenton" -- John McGill, Esq.'s political "godfather"? -- "Tony F. Mack, and his brother, Raphiel, [sic.] had participated in a scheme to take money in exchange for helping get approvals to develop a downtown parking garage. The deal was fictitious and part of a government investigation." ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
Trenton, fittingly enough, is New Jersey's capitol city. The place is an utterly devastated landscape that makes Newark look like Paris. Politicians are "for sale" and empty industrial parks as well as urban war zones serve as backdrops for drug deals, prostitution, and the state's ubiquitous public corruption. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
All of this charming activity is visible from the windows of the New Jersey Supreme Court's building. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
New Jersey's tribunals have fostered these evils, sometimes through well-intentioned -- if incompetent -- efforts at social engineering from the bench; at other times, through judicial corruption, stupidity, together with a willingness to cover-up atrocities and accept bribes. ("New Jersey's Judges Disgrace America" and "New Jersey Supreme Court's Implosion" then "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "No More Lies and Cover-Ups, Chief Justice Rabner!")
"The mayor, a Democrat, was convicted of official extortion conspiracy, of attempted extortion, accepting bribes, mail fraud and wire fraud. Raphiel Mack was convicted on the extortion and bribery counts but acquitted on the others."
This has become a routine story: bribery, organized crime affiliations among Democrats serving in high office in New Jersey, allegations of drug use, purchasing the services of prostitutes, and worse activities that do not seem to interest the liberal media. The Times ran the story of Trenton's mayor in an inside page with an "AP" byline.
I wonder why they don't care about Democrat corruption at that bastion of objective and neutral journalism that is The New York Times? Ms. Zernike, Ms. Kolbert, Ms. Abramson and Ms. Maddow -- none of you seems very interested in this news item which may also have resulted in a traffic jam on the Turnpike. ("Christie's Bridge of Sighs" and "The Teflon Governor.")
Allegations of very serious corruption against Mr. Menendez -- the chairperson of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee -- are not receiving coverage whereas the bridge scandal generates outrage at the "Gray Lady." ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
"Mr. Mack has remained in office since his arrest more than two years ago. Since 2000, mayors of the New Jersey communities [all Democrats!] Asbury Park, Camden, Hamilton, Hoboken, Newark, Orange, among others have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in corruption cases." ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Bribery in Union City, New Jersey.")
Dawn Zimmer may soon be joining this distinguished company of indicted New Jersey mayors. I notice that The New York Times has no reporter covering the scandal currently brewing around Ms. Zimmer, nor investigating her possible political motivations for the attacks against Mr. Christie, and shifting coverage of persons, like Mr. Wildstein -- former mayor of Livingston, New Jersey and friend of Terry Tuchin -- to New Jersey "insiders." ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.")
Was there no fictitious byline that might be assigned to these Jersey scandals? Jennifer Shuessler? Manohla Dargis? "Anemona Hartocolis"? What else -- besides the bylines -- is fictitious at The New York Times? Is this about "payola" for journalists? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
" ... prosecutors portrayed the mayor as an eager participant in the bribery scheme. They said he agreed to sell city-owned property -- assessed for well over $200,000 for just $100,000 in exchange for bribes." ("Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House!" then "Cement is Gold.")
Any number of local officials would also have "dipped their wicks" if this deal had gone through. They're all upset. Jeez. Nothing is easy no more. (Again: "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Law and Politics.")
The money would certainly have spread to judges on a political leash in the event of a legal challenge to the sweetheart terms and everything would have been fixed. The feds -- who suffer from a lack of humor about such shenanigans -- have spoiled everybody's fun, again. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana.")
A number of law firms that "facilitated these transactions" have lost out on the big paydays that would have resulted if the deals went through. ("Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics" and "New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit" then "New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce.")
"The authorities said that $54,000 was passed to Joseph A. Giorgianni -- a Trenton restaurant owner and political deal maker known as 'Jo-Jo,' who pleaded guilty in the case last year -- in 2011 and 2012 and that an additional $65,000 was agreed on. He was to pass the money to the mayor, authorities said." ("Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!")
Mr. Rabner was shocked to learn of Mr. Giorgianni's involvement asking: "Now where do I go for my linguini?"
Thursday, February 6, 2014
2 N.J. Lawyers in School Lunch Scam.
February 6, 2014 at 3:16 P.M. I have numerous sources to add to those listed below. I will attempt to do so from other computers if time pressures prevent me from listing the sources today at computer #2, NYPL, Morningside Heights.
The issue has been raised of whether "Kate Zernike" of the Times, as an alleged Lesbian disagreeing with Mr. Christie on gay marriage rights and loyal to Barbara Buono, may be less than a fully objective and neutral journalist to cover the so-called "bridge scandal." I cannot say whether journalistic ethics are offended by this particular decision to make Ms. Zernike so prominent in the coverage of this latest Jersey political scandal. ("Christie's Bridge of Sighs.")
Is Ms. Zernike, along with Jill Abramson, also "Jennifer Shuessler"? Has Ms. Zernike visited my sites and/or read any of my writings? Has Ms. Zernike engaged in on-line discussions or debates or exchanges, of any kind, with me? If so, what screen-name has she used and at whose request -- if it was at anyone's request -- has Ms. Zernike communicated with me, if she has done so at any time? When did these communications, or Ms. Zernike's reading of my writings, first take place -- if they took place at all? Does Ms. Zernike know Diana Lisa Riccioli? Alicia Mucci? Has Ms. Zernike received "compensation" from anyone other than the Times for her written work or any communications with me? Was Ms. Zernike at "The Philosophy Cafe" in New York or at MSN? If so, on what date or dates, if Ms. Zernike recalls, was she at these Philosophy Cafes? ("Marilyn Straus Was Right!" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison" then "Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Destroying or stealing personal property of mine will not stop me from writing, "Sheldon."
Matt Apuzzo, "U.S. is Seeking Death Penalty in Boston Case," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A1. (Message to the world.)
David E. Sanger & Thom Shanker, "N.S.A. Choice Is Navy Expert On Cyberwar," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A1. (Michael S. Rodgers will head the NSA.)
Isabel Kerscher, "Actress and Oxfam Part Ways Over Issue of Company Deal," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A11. (Mistake for Oxfam.)
Elizabetta Provoledo, "American is Again Found Guilty in 2007 Murder of Roomate in Italy," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A10. (Amanda Knox found guilty, again.)
Charles V. Bagli, "Hoboken Site Developer Dismisses Law Firm," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A23. (This is already costing Republican lawyers and their friends big bucks.)
Jason Horowitz, "Amid Ethics Inquiry, South Jersey Democrat is Giving Up House Seat for a New Job," The New York Times, February 5, 2014, p. A20. (Robert E. McAndrew, Esq., Congressman, investigated for dipping into the campaign fund while serving on the New Jersey Bar Association's Ethics Committee, allegedly. "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
Kate Zernike, "Christie Linked to Knowledge of Shut Lanes," The New York Times, February 1, 2014, p. A1. (Lawyer, Alan Zegas of New Jersey, may be lying about whether Christopher Christie, Esq. is lying about ordering a traffic jam that put lives at risk as a form of political retribution, just like the Democrats do every day in New Jersey. Kim Guardagno, Esq. may be lying about whether Dawn Zimmer, Hoboken's Mayor, is lying when she accuses Ms. Guardagno of threatening the mayor on behalf of the Governor in Trenton who insists that they are all lying about any such threat. Ms. Zernike of the newspaper of record may well be lying about a conflict of interest in her coverage of this story. Politicians may be lying about supplying "journalists" with cash to insert items in their articles. "Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
John Reitmeyer, "Christie's Approach on Port Defined: Ordered Crackdown On Other Agencies He Called 'Shadow Government,'" The Record, January 26, 2014, p. A-1. (Le jeu son fait.)
Mary Anne Spoto, "Ex-Judge is Cited for 'Legal Errors': Justices Reprimand 'Egregious' Conduct," The Record, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (Jaynee La Vecchia, who is involved in a blatant conflict of interest in the HIP scam that resulted in $300 MILLION disappearing and who has been associated with mafia figures by the media; and Stuart Rabner, who is probably protecting fellow members of his Synagogue and Debbie Poritz in my matters, to say nothing of taking care of Solomon Dwek, believe that Luis M.J. Di Leo, Linden Municipal Court Judge, is yet another disgrace to New Jersey's judiciary: "New Jersey Judges Disgrace America" and "Christie Rails Against New Jersey's Corrupt Judges.")
Tom Hayden, "Lawyer: Ex-Elizabeth School Board Member Willing to Aid School Lunch Probe," The Record, January 28, 2014, p. 13.
"A former Elizabeth School Board member charged with trying to hide a false application to get his children [into] a free school lunch program [and more] is willing to cooperate in the prosecution of TWO LAWYERS who are co-defendants in the case, a defense attorney said yesterday." ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
This unpleasant situation in Elizabeth illustrates the corruptions of New Jersey's legal profession and ethics establishment that are at the service of thieving politicians and organized crime in the Garden State. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
Politically-connected attorneys "grease" the legal process, so that money and government benefits can be stolen by insiders and they, these helpful lawyers, make very nice fees from the people's money. ("New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit" and "New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce" then "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics.")
As a condition of allowing the former Elizabeth School Board member, JOSE DONOSO, ESQ., to enter the state's PTI program, he must cooperate in the prosecution of two of the many corrupt lawyers on the proverbial government "tit" in Union County. ("Cement is Gold" and "Senator Bob Loves Xanadu!")
PTI is short for "Pre-Trial-Intervention" program. This program enacted by the N.J. state legislature allows prosecutors a great deal of discretion in deciding which accused defendants may be deviated out of the criminal justice system to avoid incarceration or receipt of a permanent criminal record. You have to be a white, middle class person, with a political friend, to get this perk. ("Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")
" ... Donoso must assist in the prosecution of board attorney KIRK NELSON and outside board attorney FRANK CAPECE."
These typically slimy but politically-influential and -connected lawyers were mostly protected by the legal ethics establishment which they served. Much the same has been true for years of the likes of JOSE GINARTE, ESQ. and LUIS BELLO, ESQ. as well as MARIA BELLO, ESQ., and so many more low-life shysters in Elizabeth. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Sexual Favors For New Jersey Judges!" then "New Jersey Supreme Court's Implosion" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")
"Nelson and Capece are also charged with official misconduct concerning the alleged hiding of the false application."
Tampering with records, obstructing justice, and altering facts as well as bribing false witnesses are crimes that should be charged against New Jersey legal ethics attorneys and the Office of Attorney Ethics in my matters. ("New Jersey's Feces Covered Supreme Court" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?" then "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
I believe that a federal investigation of my matters is well underway.
"Capece and Nelson are accused of having the application removed from the file and returned some time later."
Such frauds are how lawyers earn the gratitude of politicians and judges who will protect them from the consequences of their actions and continue to use their services. ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
I wonder how many other politicians got free lunches for their kids and much more besides? Plenty, I am sure. ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
The issue has been raised of whether "Kate Zernike" of the Times, as an alleged Lesbian disagreeing with Mr. Christie on gay marriage rights and loyal to Barbara Buono, may be less than a fully objective and neutral journalist to cover the so-called "bridge scandal." I cannot say whether journalistic ethics are offended by this particular decision to make Ms. Zernike so prominent in the coverage of this latest Jersey political scandal. ("Christie's Bridge of Sighs.")
Is Ms. Zernike, along with Jill Abramson, also "Jennifer Shuessler"? Has Ms. Zernike visited my sites and/or read any of my writings? Has Ms. Zernike engaged in on-line discussions or debates or exchanges, of any kind, with me? If so, what screen-name has she used and at whose request -- if it was at anyone's request -- has Ms. Zernike communicated with me, if she has done so at any time? When did these communications, or Ms. Zernike's reading of my writings, first take place -- if they took place at all? Does Ms. Zernike know Diana Lisa Riccioli? Alicia Mucci? Has Ms. Zernike received "compensation" from anyone other than the Times for her written work or any communications with me? Was Ms. Zernike at "The Philosophy Cafe" in New York or at MSN? If so, on what date or dates, if Ms. Zernike recalls, was she at these Philosophy Cafes? ("Marilyn Straus Was Right!" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison" then "Wedding Bells Ring For Menendez!" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Destroying or stealing personal property of mine will not stop me from writing, "Sheldon."
Matt Apuzzo, "U.S. is Seeking Death Penalty in Boston Case," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A1. (Message to the world.)
David E. Sanger & Thom Shanker, "N.S.A. Choice Is Navy Expert On Cyberwar," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A1. (Michael S. Rodgers will head the NSA.)
Isabel Kerscher, "Actress and Oxfam Part Ways Over Issue of Company Deal," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A11. (Mistake for Oxfam.)
Elizabetta Provoledo, "American is Again Found Guilty in 2007 Murder of Roomate in Italy," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A10. (Amanda Knox found guilty, again.)
Charles V. Bagli, "Hoboken Site Developer Dismisses Law Firm," The New York Times, January 31, 2014, p. A23. (This is already costing Republican lawyers and their friends big bucks.)
Jason Horowitz, "Amid Ethics Inquiry, South Jersey Democrat is Giving Up House Seat for a New Job," The New York Times, February 5, 2014, p. A20. (Robert E. McAndrew, Esq., Congressman, investigated for dipping into the campaign fund while serving on the New Jersey Bar Association's Ethics Committee, allegedly. "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
Kate Zernike, "Christie Linked to Knowledge of Shut Lanes," The New York Times, February 1, 2014, p. A1. (Lawyer, Alan Zegas of New Jersey, may be lying about whether Christopher Christie, Esq. is lying about ordering a traffic jam that put lives at risk as a form of political retribution, just like the Democrats do every day in New Jersey. Kim Guardagno, Esq. may be lying about whether Dawn Zimmer, Hoboken's Mayor, is lying when she accuses Ms. Guardagno of threatening the mayor on behalf of the Governor in Trenton who insists that they are all lying about any such threat. Ms. Zernike of the newspaper of record may well be lying about a conflict of interest in her coverage of this story. Politicians may be lying about supplying "journalists" with cash to insert items in their articles. "Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
John Reitmeyer, "Christie's Approach on Port Defined: Ordered Crackdown On Other Agencies He Called 'Shadow Government,'" The Record, January 26, 2014, p. A-1. (Le jeu son fait.)
Mary Anne Spoto, "Ex-Judge is Cited for 'Legal Errors': Justices Reprimand 'Egregious' Conduct," The Record, January 28, 2014, p. 13. (Jaynee La Vecchia, who is involved in a blatant conflict of interest in the HIP scam that resulted in $300 MILLION disappearing and who has been associated with mafia figures by the media; and Stuart Rabner, who is probably protecting fellow members of his Synagogue and Debbie Poritz in my matters, to say nothing of taking care of Solomon Dwek, believe that Luis M.J. Di Leo, Linden Municipal Court Judge, is yet another disgrace to New Jersey's judiciary: "New Jersey Judges Disgrace America" and "Christie Rails Against New Jersey's Corrupt Judges.")
Tom Hayden, "Lawyer: Ex-Elizabeth School Board Member Willing to Aid School Lunch Probe," The Record, January 28, 2014, p. 13.
"A former Elizabeth School Board member charged with trying to hide a false application to get his children [into] a free school lunch program [and more] is willing to cooperate in the prosecution of TWO LAWYERS who are co-defendants in the case, a defense attorney said yesterday." ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")
This unpleasant situation in Elizabeth illustrates the corruptions of New Jersey's legal profession and ethics establishment that are at the service of thieving politicians and organized crime in the Garden State. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")
Politically-connected attorneys "grease" the legal process, so that money and government benefits can be stolen by insiders and they, these helpful lawyers, make very nice fees from the people's money. ("New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit" and "New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce" then "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics.")
As a condition of allowing the former Elizabeth School Board member, JOSE DONOSO, ESQ., to enter the state's PTI program, he must cooperate in the prosecution of two of the many corrupt lawyers on the proverbial government "tit" in Union County. ("Cement is Gold" and "Senator Bob Loves Xanadu!")
PTI is short for "Pre-Trial-Intervention" program. This program enacted by the N.J. state legislature allows prosecutors a great deal of discretion in deciding which accused defendants may be deviated out of the criminal justice system to avoid incarceration or receipt of a permanent criminal record. You have to be a white, middle class person, with a political friend, to get this perk. ("Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")
" ... Donoso must assist in the prosecution of board attorney KIRK NELSON and outside board attorney FRANK CAPECE."
These typically slimy but politically-influential and -connected lawyers were mostly protected by the legal ethics establishment which they served. Much the same has been true for years of the likes of JOSE GINARTE, ESQ. and LUIS BELLO, ESQ. as well as MARIA BELLO, ESQ., and so many more low-life shysters in Elizabeth. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Sexual Favors For New Jersey Judges!" then "New Jersey Supreme Court's Implosion" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")
"Nelson and Capece are also charged with official misconduct concerning the alleged hiding of the false application."
Tampering with records, obstructing justice, and altering facts as well as bribing false witnesses are crimes that should be charged against New Jersey legal ethics attorneys and the Office of Attorney Ethics in my matters. ("New Jersey's Feces Covered Supreme Court" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?" then "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")
I believe that a federal investigation of my matters is well underway.
"Capece and Nelson are accused of having the application removed from the file and returned some time later."
Such frauds are how lawyers earn the gratitude of politicians and judges who will protect them from the consequences of their actions and continue to use their services. ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
I wonder how many other politicians got free lunches for their kids and much more besides? Plenty, I am sure. ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
Monday, February 3, 2014
Menendez Spends $250,000 On Shysters.
February 3, 2014 at 10:31 A.M. It now appears that there are serious questions concerning whether Mr. Menendez and/or Governor Christie have lied about the respective matters that concern them over which federal investigations are pending. ("On Bullshit.")
Along with a number of others accused of lying or misrepresenting the truth in these matters, including Alan Zegas, Esq. and Kim Guardagno, Esq., both of these "Jersey Boys" -- Menendez and Christie -- are members of the New Jersey Bar Association, whose lies (if any) are grounds for disbarment. In fact, much the same may be said of Mr. Rabner's "lies through silence" in my matters. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" then "No More Lies and Cover-Ups, Chief Justice Rabner!")
William K. Rashbaum, "Christie Lawyer Is Known For His Aggressive Tactics," The New York Times, January 17, 2014, p. A22. (Aggressive tactics may be inappropriate in this context, Mr. Mastro.)
"Names of the Dead," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A11. (2,292 dead Americans and counting in Afghanistan alone, but no traffic jams. The media is not very interested in this story.)
Michael Powell, "In New Jersey, Leader of an Agency Under Investigation Is Given a Judge's Robe," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A15. (What else is new in New Jersey? One earns a judgeship by being indicted or hanging out with mafia guys.)
Patrick McGeehan, "Lieutenant Governor Calls a Mayor's Claims Illogical," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A14. (Kim Guardagno seems to have won the exchange with Ms. Zimmer. The Hoboken mayor may face charges for corruption.)
Manny Fernandez, "Pregnant Woman's Life Support Ordered Cut," The New York Times, January 25, 2014, p. A1. (Judge rules for family allowing for termination of life support for a pregnant brain-dead woman. Right decision in a difficult case.)
Sam Tanenhaus & Jim Rutenberg, "Rand Paul's Mixed Inheritance: Senator Looks to Move Libertarianism From Fringe to Mainstream," The New York Times, January 26, 2014, p. A1. (A tone of patronizing dismissal mars this otherwise interesting profile of Senator Paul.)
Patrick McGeehan & Charles V. Bagli, "How Pressure Mounted For Project in Hoboken," The New York Times, January 30, 2014, p. A1. ("The Evil Mole" scenario will not work because Ms. Guardagno denies Dawn Zimmer's suspiciously belated allegations.)
Michael Linhorst & Herb Jackson, "Menendez Unaware of Probe: Justice Looks at Ties to Brokers," The Record, January 25, 2014, p. A-3. (Menendez claims that "it's all a mischaracterization." Curiously, despite insisting on a lack of knowledge, Senator Menendez hired lawyers in December, 2013 for BOTH probes and several other matters which he must have known were coming.)
"Jersey and the Feds," (Editorial) The Record, January 25, 2014, p. A-3. (" ... New Jersey never seems able to move out from under lingering clouds of suspicion concerning its most trusted and visible public officials." Please see: "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "What did you Know, Mr. Rabner, and When Did You Know It?")
Herb Jackson, "Menendez Sets Up Fund for Defense in Twin Probes: Paid Lawyers $250,000 Over Inquiries Into Donor," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1.
Mr. Menendez denied any knowledge of FBI inquiries into his relationship with wanted fugitives from Ecuador. This is to say nothing of Dr. Melgen and the underage prostitutes who have disappeared, only some of whom have recanted their testimony, which Mr. Menendez occasionally and conveniently "forgets."
Mr. Menendez's spokesperson should be sure of her facts. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Website Denies Link to Menendez Case.")
Senator Menendez is quoted in the media suggesting that Ecuador is "corrupt" so that issuance of warrants should not be taken seriously by the U.S. government. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
New Jersey or the "Soprano State" -- known around the world as a highly corrupt jurisdiction -- is seen as a model of good government by Mr. Menendez. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" then "Is Menendez For Sale?" and "Does Senator Menendez have mafia friends?")
"Menendez paid a Washington law firm $250,000 from his campaign account in DECEMBER, a campaign disclosure filed Friday shows."
This payment suggests that Menendez is very aware of multiple FBI inquiries and has been preparing for possible indictment. ("Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "More Problems For Menendez -- Tapes!")
Promoting the GWB crisis may be a technique of distraction for Menendez-friendly media anxious not to lose the $120 MILLION per year the New Jersey senator brings to Democrats. ("Menendez Gets Over on the Feds!" and "Bribery in Union City, New Jersey.")
Accusations from Boss Bob of New Jersey that foreign governments are "corrupt" have usually been greeted with laughter by those non-U.S. officials who regard Mr. Menendez as a "political thug from a failed jurisdiction":
" ... 'When you spend that kind of money on lawyers, it's obvious you've got a couple of binding inquiries going on,' said Melanie Sloan, executive director [sic.] of Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics in Washington. 'I think there is a criminal inquiry as well as an ethics inquiry.' ... " (emphasis added!) ("Menendez Must Give Up the Gavel!")
Mr. Menendez has difficulties grasping what is at issue in these inquiries and is not cooperating fully. Spokesperson "Tricia Enright" said:
"Over the past year we have incurred significant expenses to respond to the SMEAR CAMPAIGN that was launched by RIGHT WING operatives."
This sounds more like Mary Marban, Esq. than Lilian Munoz, Esq. I believe Ms. Marban also acted against me from behind my back at the orders of the senator.
Any member of the bar who requested such actions against a colleague, secretly targeted for professional harm, is acting unethically and may be guilty of criminal conduct. The same is true of any lawyer carrying out such instructions. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
The U.S. Senate's Ethics Committee is not a partisan "smear campaign." The Obama Justice Department and FBI is not engaging in a "smear campaign" against Mr. Menendez. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption" then, again, "New Jersey's 'Ethical Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
The U.S. Justice Department and FBI are not "Right-wing" operatives.
The legal bills continue to pile-up as "prostitutes" continue to disappear in the Dominican Republic and more mysterious fires break out in Union City on a weekly basis. ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?")
"Overall Menendez's disclosure report for the fourth quarter of last year shows he raised $104,000 and spent $570,000 and had just over $1 MILLION left in his account."
Along with a number of others accused of lying or misrepresenting the truth in these matters, including Alan Zegas, Esq. and Kim Guardagno, Esq., both of these "Jersey Boys" -- Menendez and Christie -- are members of the New Jersey Bar Association, whose lies (if any) are grounds for disbarment. In fact, much the same may be said of Mr. Rabner's "lies through silence" in my matters. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" then "No More Lies and Cover-Ups, Chief Justice Rabner!")
William K. Rashbaum, "Christie Lawyer Is Known For His Aggressive Tactics," The New York Times, January 17, 2014, p. A22. (Aggressive tactics may be inappropriate in this context, Mr. Mastro.)
"Names of the Dead," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A11. (2,292 dead Americans and counting in Afghanistan alone, but no traffic jams. The media is not very interested in this story.)
Michael Powell, "In New Jersey, Leader of an Agency Under Investigation Is Given a Judge's Robe," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A15. (What else is new in New Jersey? One earns a judgeship by being indicted or hanging out with mafia guys.)
Patrick McGeehan, "Lieutenant Governor Calls a Mayor's Claims Illogical," The New York Times, January 21, 2014, p. A14. (Kim Guardagno seems to have won the exchange with Ms. Zimmer. The Hoboken mayor may face charges for corruption.)
Manny Fernandez, "Pregnant Woman's Life Support Ordered Cut," The New York Times, January 25, 2014, p. A1. (Judge rules for family allowing for termination of life support for a pregnant brain-dead woman. Right decision in a difficult case.)
Sam Tanenhaus & Jim Rutenberg, "Rand Paul's Mixed Inheritance: Senator Looks to Move Libertarianism From Fringe to Mainstream," The New York Times, January 26, 2014, p. A1. (A tone of patronizing dismissal mars this otherwise interesting profile of Senator Paul.)
Patrick McGeehan & Charles V. Bagli, "How Pressure Mounted For Project in Hoboken," The New York Times, January 30, 2014, p. A1. ("The Evil Mole" scenario will not work because Ms. Guardagno denies Dawn Zimmer's suspiciously belated allegations.)
Michael Linhorst & Herb Jackson, "Menendez Unaware of Probe: Justice Looks at Ties to Brokers," The Record, January 25, 2014, p. A-3. (Menendez claims that "it's all a mischaracterization." Curiously, despite insisting on a lack of knowledge, Senator Menendez hired lawyers in December, 2013 for BOTH probes and several other matters which he must have known were coming.)
"Jersey and the Feds," (Editorial) The Record, January 25, 2014, p. A-3. (" ... New Jersey never seems able to move out from under lingering clouds of suspicion concerning its most trusted and visible public officials." Please see: "Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "What did you Know, Mr. Rabner, and When Did You Know It?")
Herb Jackson, "Menendez Sets Up Fund for Defense in Twin Probes: Paid Lawyers $250,000 Over Inquiries Into Donor," The Record, February 1, 2014, p. A-1.
Mr. Menendez denied any knowledge of FBI inquiries into his relationship with wanted fugitives from Ecuador. This is to say nothing of Dr. Melgen and the underage prostitutes who have disappeared, only some of whom have recanted their testimony, which Mr. Menendez occasionally and conveniently "forgets."
Mr. Menendez's spokesperson should be sure of her facts. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Website Denies Link to Menendez Case.")
Senator Menendez is quoted in the media suggesting that Ecuador is "corrupt" so that issuance of warrants should not be taken seriously by the U.S. government. ("New Jersey is Lucky Luciano's Havana" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
New Jersey or the "Soprano State" -- known around the world as a highly corrupt jurisdiction -- is seen as a model of good government by Mr. Menendez. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" then "Is Menendez For Sale?" and "Does Senator Menendez have mafia friends?")
"Menendez paid a Washington law firm $250,000 from his campaign account in DECEMBER, a campaign disclosure filed Friday shows."
This payment suggests that Menendez is very aware of multiple FBI inquiries and has been preparing for possible indictment. ("Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "More Problems For Menendez -- Tapes!")
Promoting the GWB crisis may be a technique of distraction for Menendez-friendly media anxious not to lose the $120 MILLION per year the New Jersey senator brings to Democrats. ("Menendez Gets Over on the Feds!" and "Bribery in Union City, New Jersey.")
Accusations from Boss Bob of New Jersey that foreign governments are "corrupt" have usually been greeted with laughter by those non-U.S. officials who regard Mr. Menendez as a "political thug from a failed jurisdiction":
" ... 'When you spend that kind of money on lawyers, it's obvious you've got a couple of binding inquiries going on,' said Melanie Sloan, executive director [sic.] of Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics in Washington. 'I think there is a criminal inquiry as well as an ethics inquiry.' ... " (emphasis added!) ("Menendez Must Give Up the Gavel!")
Mr. Menendez has difficulties grasping what is at issue in these inquiries and is not cooperating fully. Spokesperson "Tricia Enright" said:
"Over the past year we have incurred significant expenses to respond to the SMEAR CAMPAIGN that was launched by RIGHT WING operatives."
This sounds more like Mary Marban, Esq. than Lilian Munoz, Esq. I believe Ms. Marban also acted against me from behind my back at the orders of the senator.
Any member of the bar who requested such actions against a colleague, secretly targeted for professional harm, is acting unethically and may be guilty of criminal conduct. The same is true of any lawyer carrying out such instructions. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
The U.S. Senate's Ethics Committee is not a partisan "smear campaign." The Obama Justice Department and FBI is not engaging in a "smear campaign" against Mr. Menendez. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption" then, again, "New Jersey's 'Ethical Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")
The U.S. Justice Department and FBI are not "Right-wing" operatives.
The legal bills continue to pile-up as "prostitutes" continue to disappear in the Dominican Republic and more mysterious fires break out in Union City on a weekly basis. ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?")
"Overall Menendez's disclosure report for the fourth quarter of last year shows he raised $104,000 and spent $570,000 and had just over $1 MILLION left in his account."
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