Transferable Skills Are Made, Not Born

This is for all you job-hunting philosophy students out there. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. Hey you! Yeah, you - the one by the white sedan! Let me give some unsolicited advice, to you and to myself: make a conscious effort to extend the range of your abilities. You can, though it might take work.

In the course of my groundless floating (i.e. surfing the Internet), I ran across an interesting bit which prompted this post. It's not even remotely original, but in a volatile job market that practically demands career changes, the lesson is worth reiterating.

When job hunting, you may have to consider positions you haven't been trained for. If you've been trained in (ahem) philosophy, you've educated yourself into a corner (now really, besides universities, how many places hire professional philosophers?) unless you make the effort to apply all those skills you learned in new situations.

This transferability doesn't come automatically. That the skills of philosophical training must be listed is evidence that those very same skills are neither obvious nor obviously transferable.

In fact, I'm tempted to say that every skill requires effort to extend. Case in point: in an FBI study on attackers of police officers it was found, among other things, that a number of incidents could have been avoided by those officers. Many assailants carry concealed weapons which ought to have been detected but weren't.

An irony...is that officers who are assigned to look for concealed weapons, while working off-duty security at night clubs for instance, are often highly proficient at detecting them. "But then when they go back to the street without that specific assignment, they seem to 'turn off' that skill," and thus are startled--sometimes fatally--when a suspect suddenly produces a weapon and attacks.

In other words, cops who get good at spotting hidden arms while moonlighting don't necessarily carry that skill over to their day job. It's the exact same action, only the context is different, namely the role of a police officer. Understand that I am neither blaming nor excusing the victims for their injury, only pointing up a fact. We're all prone to similar oversights.

But should we acquiesce to the facts? Shall we throw up our arms and leave our status quo of abilities be? No: what we should do is beware of our tendency to let habits ossify - and determine where we can put Skill X to good use. This transfer of skills is precisely what's needed in order to get a job when you have to switch gears.

Now the more specialized you get, the more deliberate the transfer must be. Otherwise how can you explain the stupid things philosophers sometimes do? Some plagiarize, others cheat on their spouses, still others set themselves up as experts on 9/11. Philosophers aren't the only idiots; I am simply saying that their abilities, which can apply to many situations, do not do so of their own accord.

I may well be revealing more about myself than about philosophers in general, but it seems to me we've got our blind spots like anyone else. I think our blind spot tends to be an undue pride in our intellectual abilities: we think we're hot shit, that we can do anything simply because we've studied this abstract, complicated thing. C.S. Peirce voiced this criticism over a century ago, and it remains true today; it doesn't seem profound, but that's only because we don't appreciate how needful it was to say it.

We must make an effort to apply our skills appropriately. This means observing the field - where we'll be doing our critical thinking, for example. It means not only analyzing that field and case studies, but also imagining ourselves in various situations: how, O Great Spinozist, how do you teach English to a dozen kids in your class when they've already sat through a full day of school? what book do you find that advice in - and how do you know you'll do it right (assuming it's good advice)? You might have a leg up on, say, a ditch-digger or an air-traffic controller, but it's not always evident.

So. How can we help ourselves make that shift of skills? I'd like to whip up some ways to do that. But, my friends, that's another post.

(Image thoughtfully pilfered from here on Student Work in Photography, Drawing, and Graphic Design)

A Volitionist Argument for the Assurance of Salvation

Agent Intellect has a very interesting post comparing the idea of salvation as manifested in Islam and Christianity. He argues that since Allah is irreducibly capricious, Muslims can only hope that they will be found worthy in His eyes; a righteous man therefore could be damned if Allah decided it should be so. Christianity's promise, on the other hand, assures that God can, does, and must allow any righteous follower. This is a heavy claim, even without the comparison.

What has always puzzled me is the idea that we can know any limitations to God's nature. After all, if God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why couldn't He perform the impossible? Why couldn't He create a rock that He could not lift? By extension, why couldn't God go back on His word? This is a well-known argument against Christianity: any limitations to God lead to self-contradictory conclusions, and so Christianity is absurd. If that is the case, then Islam presents the only logical conception of God - a Supreme Being who can change His mind in an instant, even deceive us whimsically.

I believe St. Paul supplies a response to this charge. My contention is that the impossibility of a lying God exists and is perfectly logical, but that it still rests on His will. Far from being a limitation, this evidences God's love for us. First we have to trace the nature of this impossibility, and then we can draw out the implications.

Understand that I am not arguing that God exists here. In the following argument

If the Bible is true, God is real and He spoke to Abraham.
If God had this conversation with Abraham, He could not lie.
Therefore if the Bible is true, God did not lie to Abraham.

this post addresses only Premiss #2. Nor am I arguing for theological voluntarism necessarily (!), though this could be regarded as supportive of that position. For the moment I'm simply unpacking this question and offering an account.

Agent Intellect cites several verses supporting the thesis that God cannot lie, but the only one which says it is impossible for God to lie is Heb. 6.18. What's interesting is that He does so purely out of volition, which is confirmed by verses 13-15. God made the promise to Abraham, which really was not necessary; nobody forced Him to make the promise. The force of necessity comes in thanks to (1) the nature of promises and (2) the absolute nature of God, not in His willing to make the promise. Because a promise involves swearing by something higher than oneself, God was compelled to appeal to a higher authority. But since God is the highest authority around, He could only swear by Himself. That's what makes the Law what it is. In other words, in the act of promising, God transmuted His word from actuality to necessity; it became binding because He willed it.

Thus prior to the Covenant there was no necessity behind God's word; it was merely actually so. We can then say He did not lie, though He very well could have. Therefore the necessity mentioned in Hebrews 6.18 rests ultimately on God's decision to make the promise to Abraham. In other words, God created His own necessity.

Does that mean we're supposed to take God's word for it? He cannot lie because He said so...? That's like the ultimate used-car salesman: "Trust me." Let's compare the two cases. The used-car salesman wants to be trusted, but we know there are greater sources of truth than his snake-oil testimony. We can have the car tested and see whether there's any truth in the claim. In the case of God, however, we have no higher authority to appeal to. Assuming that God is real, He is the final arbiter on all matters and therefore the ultimate assurance for a promise - even His own.

The consistency of God's nature manifests itself in His love for us. This is evidenced by the fact that He makes himself trustworthy, as the Covenant demonstrates. Out of the very nature which created the world, God literally creates necessity by binding His word with Himself. He could deceive us, but He doesn't; instead he holds Himself to his word, which is by definition superlative in power and authority.

This rendition comes with an interesting twist: since God's word ought to be binding because it is so, it appears to fall prey to the Naturalistic Fallacy - and yet does not. The reason for this is that the Naturalistic Fallacy depends on immanent conceptions of modality. The domain of philosophy is the world around us, and we try to explain things in terms that anybody could examine. In other words, we cannot explain how necessity of any kind may be derived from actuality in terms of the everyday world. This is true. But God by definition transcends the universe, and therefore its laws do not necessarily apply. In this case alone can we derive an ought from an is. This argument therefore provides a valid speculative link between the immanent and transcendent.

This conception of God seems most consistent with His nature. See Genesis 1.3 or John 1.1: things happen on the basis of God's speaking, and they occur as commanded. I am not arguing from the authority of these verses, I am citing them as evidence of sacred consistency. (My argument for the basis of Christian assurance rests on Scripture, but only to the extent that it asserts the reality of God. Even if we leave the question mark of God standing, the argument remains valid.) The world came into being: none of this had to be, it simply was the case. The complexity of the universe is certainly fascinating, but so what? That doesn't make me go "Wow!" It could be more complex. Big deal. No, it is the world's very contingency which makes it so astonishing - that it exists at all.

So it seems that Paul sheds light on the loving nature of God by explaining why He cannot lie: the will to be true to His word, which only makes sense because of care. God cannot lie because He cares enough for us to make a promise. Hopefully I've got it right, but I could well be wrong.

Musique du Jour

Grouper, "Hold the Way."

Maya Deren dances with David Lynch.

A Thought - Awards in Architecture

It seems to me that architectural designs should not be given awards until they've been up for at least fifty years.

1. Buildings are meant to be used, meaning people must live and work in them. If they cannot be used comfortably, they cannot be called good, no matter how pretty they look. What good is a kitchen with countertops only three inches deep? You can't do much with it. What is the point of staircases three inches wide? Ferrets could use it, but who's designing building for ferrets? Buildings are designed around human actions, so they have to be designed in human proportions.

2. Corollary of #1: buildings are not meant to be repaired more than necessary. Fixing a building costs time and money, and it cuts into the everyday workings of the people using the building. Water needs to be shut off sometimes, areas are blocked off, and so on. For regular maintenance this can't be helped, and should be tolerated in the interest of preserving the building. Structural defects are not necessary, they are errors in the design itself and are therefore avoidable. (I'm thinking about the Portland Building fiasco, an avoidable architectural flower of evil. I don't include Portlandia, a sculptural gem.)

3. Neither the use nor the soundness of a building really can be seen right away. This is because we don't always know how people will respond to the building, and an architectural blueprint is extremely complex - flaws won't announce themselves. What looks good on paper, then, might not actually work in practice. But that wouldn't be due to a disconnect between theory and practice; rather, it would evidence an error in knowledge of principles. (See Immanuel Kant, On the Old Saw: That Might Be True in Theory, But It Won't Work in Practice. For the full text, listen here. Kant's talking about human affairs in general, so it applies to my argument too.)

4. Therefore we should hold off on any special awards for architectural designs for a sufficient length of time - fifty years, I'd say. Candidates could be chosen after half a century, or slated for monitoring that long. Costs for utilities, repairs, and maintenance would be logged up; those costs would yield post-construction rate by which to gauge the building. Detailed surveys could be taken every five years, finding the opinion of tenants of the building concerning its user-friendliness, adaptivity, visual appeal, etc. All this information would be brought to the table along with the blueprints for judging. This would do architecture more justice as a field by evaluating cases on the merits which fit the intent of the field, thus reducing the total amount of crow that needs to be eaten.

Discuss.
(Images haplessly horked from Design Language Etc. and Great Buildings.com *har*.)

Jan Tschichold on Typography, Learning,...and Agapé

"In a pathological pursuit of things different, the reasonable proportions of paper size, like so many other qualities, have been banished by some to the disadvantage of the solitary and defenseless reader. There was a time when deviations from the truly beautiful page proportions 2:3, 1:√ 3 , and the Golden Section were rare. Many books produced between 1550 and 1770 show these proportions exactly, to within half a millimetre.

"To learn this, one has to examine old books thoroughly. Alas, almost no one does this any more, yet the benefits of such study are imeasurable. Schools of typography, in cooperation with libraries of old books, need to undertake two things: first, a detailed inspection of old books, and second, in support of this, permanent as well as changing exhibitions of these old treasures. An admiringly superficial look at a particularly beautiful set of pages or title pages only is not sufficient. One has to be able to touch these books and carefully study their typographical structure page by page. Even old books whose content is no longer relevant can serve this purpose. It is true, we are born with our eyes, but they will only open slowly to beauty, much more slowly than one thinks. Nor is it simple to find a knowledgeable person one could ask for guidance. Frequently, a general educational background is lacking, even in the teacher.

"Around 1930 a teacher of fine arts was outraged by the fact that a typographer was expected to know his way around in the history of script of the past two thousand years. By the way, demands in those days were more moderate than they are today. If we were to disregard such standards altogether, however, we would return to barbarism. He who no longer understands what he is doing is becoming as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

--"The Importance of Tradition in Typography". The Form of the Book, p. 27-8.
(Image recklessly lifted from Linotype.com)