This [a disconnected link to a logic course webpage] is no way to get women into logic. 
The “naughty schoolgirls” Vince Hendricks, an editor of Synthese, probably the most prestigious epistemology journal, anticipates in his logic class will surprise the rest of us. The kinderwhore fashion is ten years out of date and provides too little clothing for Copenhagen. In all seriousness, it’s such a throwback (except for the iPod) that I thought it was The Onion.
Hendricks gradually removed the images, beginning with these, which I caught with screen shots. The page was changed to indicate they come from a magazine spread, which does not mitigate Hendricks’ choice to use cheesecake to advertise logic. Perhaps mooning is a new transformation rule that he’s taught his students?
A similar arrogance, though not specifically sexist, was noted on the part of Hendricks by the Leiter Report, when he shut down criticisms of creationism. Leiter credits the feminist philosophers blog for breaking the cheesecake story, (I thank them for my first joke,) and you can find more discussion there. But here on RAIL are the screen shots everyone has asked for as a record of what logic looks like without feminism, even now.
RAIL 
A good thing from this kerfluffle is that I found this blog!
Thanks, RAIL. Linked your post here: http://heyladyheylady.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=38&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
I’ll be the last person to defend these images, but that said, in the spirit of critical thinking, I want to play devil’s advocate for a minute…
How do we know these images are not satirical in intent–perhaps a comment on the crass commericalization of higher education? Has no one else but me noticed that Hendricks, as a black man, might not be invoking racial stereotypes here too? (If you find yourself chuffing at this then I bid you look at the ads for colleges and universities in your area–you will find them nicely segregated by similarly insensitive demographic stereotypes.) Could it not be that we’re missing the point because we’re not paying enough attention to the juxtaposition of person-less, abstract formal logic and the cognitive flaws of the people that practice it–the most ready-to-hand example of such flaws being things like racial and gender biases? (And isn’t non-montonic logic a discipline that is founded on a straightforward recognition that idealized monotonic logics, though interesting, are inadequate to the task of describing realistic patterns of inference?)
If we rush to condemnation of any communicative act without stopping to consider that our interpretation of it might be wildly out of sync with what the communicator intends, and (especially) if we do so on the basis of the race, gender, religion, etc. of the communicator, no matter what it is, then aren’t we guilty of the same kind of prejudicial thinking we oppose?
If we find ourselves saying: “Yes, of course it’s likely that these images are intended as satire, or humor, or some other sort of meta-commentary but it’s not likely because Hendricks is male/the product of patriarchal Danish society/etc.” then, given that we do not have any concrete evidence about what the intent of the images really was, aren’t we guilty of some degree of confirmation bias ourselves?
The point here is not to defend Hendricks or exploitative, “cheescake”-type pics of anyone. I don’t know his motives (or those of the models in these pictures) any more than anyone else does. As someone with a little background in art, however, I do know that it usually pays not to underestimate the intent behind deliberately provocative images like this. Hendricks may well be an egomaniac, but it’s wildly implausible to me that he would have had no idea of the negative reaction these kinds of images were going to draw. In fact, he may be baiting feminists in order to drum up some controversy and get his name in the papers. In that case, overheated responses to this would put the joke squarely on us.
And again, he may in fact just be a sexist egomaniac who thinks ripping off memes from 1980s rock videos is kewl. (In this case he’s both boring and offensive.) The point is not to defend him or the images at all. The point is that we don’t know, and that because we know images like this have the power to provoke us to betray the kind of principles of critical thinking that are often the focus here on RAIL, we ought to be careful in assessing them when they come from sources and contexts like this one. That way, not only will we avoid being played by a facile trick, but we will also uphold the standards of critical thinking for which we so often advocate.
In short, Steve, no. Critical thinking is one thing, boundless scepticism is another. That’s a pretty weak devil, even if a philosophically popular one. I don’t see any racial irony here, and the reasoning you suggest involves a number of equally implausible assumptions.
Perhaps my flippancy was misleading. Rather than jumping to conclusions, critics of this image including myself spent most of yesterday fretting over what Hendricks could possibly have been thinking. Critics are deeply upset to see a high-ranking philosopher exploit young women’s bodies, and outraged that he would do so for the purposes of publicizing education.
There is a great deal of speculation on the feminist philosophers blog about what the motivation might be (including me in comment 76): http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/um/. Many comments there suggest the possibility of artistic merit, but fail to cite any. If Hendricks was trying to be satirical, he failed; and failing to recognize the difficulties of being ironic about objectification is sexist, even if nothing else is.
I wonder what sources and contexts you find deserve such extensive scepticism, even as an exercise in critical thinking? However, Hendricks has now retracted the images and posted an apology. The apology reflects his complete ignorance about gender subordination (see final comments on feminist philosophers blog). Hendricks is no artist, however good a logician he may be.
When I click on the page now I get “page not found”, so I’m not even seeing the apology. Just the same if he’s copped to being that dense then there’s no point in pursuing the devil’s advocate line of argument any further in this case.
In the case of skepticism, however, I believe I might generally be more friendly than you are. I think a skeptical point of view is very salutary in kick-starting nearly any line of inquiry. In fact, I’m of a mind to think that a case for any position isn’t really complete if one cannot rule out the nearest-to-hand skeptical possibilities. I’m not talking about brains-in-vats here, but in cases like this one for example, the possibility that Hendricks was putting forward some kind of meta-commentary. Of course his apology rules that out, so in this case the skeptical burden is met with no problem: there really is nothing more to the images than their sexist content.
It’s maybe a methodological point that could be debated in another sphere, but I often find it incredibly helpful to wonder what it would be like for the other side to be 100% right, for my perceptions to be wildly inaccurate, my data to be biased, etc.. I don’t know that it would have been possible for me to claim the sympathy I have with feminism at all today were not for this intellectual attitude. It was skepticism that put me on the path to the inquiries that led me to a sense of what feminism is and why it’s a good thing.
But the crux of the exercise is that you do it all the time. Skepticism for friends as well as for enemies; double skepticism for yourself. It may be a little homespun (from a philosophical point of view), but I cannot think of any better remedy for the creep of biases and dogmatic thinking. That’s why I’d defend it as an important part of critical thinking in any context.
I agree that ours is a methodological dispute, Steve; and I agree that scepticism is a healthy and necessary part of critical thinking, and especially valuable to kickstart it. But, I maintain that progressive scepticism can also undermine rationality — there can be too much of a good thing, which is perhaps the core reason that I consider myself a naturalist/pragmatist.
The apology is here: http://www.vince-inc.com/vincent/?p=1175, plus posted on the feminist philosophers and Leiter blogs.
[…] is wrong on many levels. I’m happy to see several blogs that have written about it, another here, questioning and criticizing the action with concern for the impact this could have (or has already […]
Steve, whatever methodological debates you want engage in here, or whatever discussions on the merits of scepticism in critical thinking you choose to open, I find it difficult to imagine that you are willing to entertain a position that these photos are doing anything but more harm than good. Whatever value you seem to see in these photos certainly is outweighed by the huge harm they are causing. To suggest that women in philosophy, when faced with such obvious insulting and offensive photos, apply our rational faculties to try to spin it in a positive light and ignore the problem, is asking too much of the wrong people. You should be asking Hendricks to rethink his position, not asking us to rethink ours. If you are not able to see that, then I suggest you spend a bit more time with women in philosophy (and logic) who have felt under-valued and disrespected in exactly the ways these photos depict.
Your anger over the photos is understandable and I share it. I believe that if you read what I posted–both in the above comment and in the twitter feed column–on this issue very carefully you will no doubt see that I have been unequivocal in my condemnation of the photos. I took great pains to point out that my remarks were not intended as a defense.
I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that I suggested that women weren’t “using their rational faculties” about this issue. Frankly I find your readiness to impute such sexist thinking to me rather disturbing. The phrase “devil’s advocate” right at the outset of my comments should have been tip-off that I intended no such thing, as should have been my inclusion of myself throughout the hypothetical through use of the collective “we”. If these weren’t clear-enough signposts for you, then my explicit abandonment of the hypothetical upon discovering that there was nothing deeper going on should have done it. If you’re still not happy then let me state it again as clearly as possible: I don’t approve of the photos. I don’t know Hendricks personally, but given what I’ve seen of him in this episode I doubt that I want to. Whatever the man’s merits may be in other domains, he’s clearly shown a deeply problematic moral blindness in this one.
As to your other remarks, I will just say that this *is* a blog about argumentation and critical thinking that was created for academic theorists, and devoted precisely to methodological issues like the one I raised. Thus I see nothing at all wrong with trying to learn something about critical thinking from this episode. In the chance that I do, that won’t make what Hendricks did right. It will however, make me (and whomever else might be following the dialectic) better-off for whatever it is that I learn. Given the opinions you seem to have formed of me, I really rather think you should approve of any potential increase in my critical thinking skills. 🙂
Steve: You suggest I may have “betrayed the principles of critical thinking” which is to suggest I wasn’t using my rational faculties. This meaning is quite clear, and flies in the face of your disclaimers.
Actually Cate, I think if you read the full sentence, note the use of the word ‘us’ and put it in the context in which it is intended (and which I took pains to make clear yet again in my reply to Darwingrrl) I think you’ll see that I meant no such thing.
But if you want to think the worst, I can’t stop you, can I?
I believe you have made your intentions clear, Steve, in the long run, and I always tried to interpret them well. However, you really did make it a challenge, and darwingrrl did not put words in your mouth, but called you out.
As for “us,” as the old joke goes: “what do you mean ‘we’ white man?” http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/whos_we_white_man_or_the_medias_mythical_majority/
Sorry Cate, but I really, really disagree. If this perception that I threw some kind of misogynistic gauntlet at your feet persists then either my intentions haven’t been made clear at all (despite my repeated efforts to make them so), or I’ve not been interpreted anywhere near as charitably as you say. At this point that’s probably better left as a question for whatever audience is still paying attention to this exchange.
Being at a loss as to how to proceed in these circumstances, and being in possession of a gnawing hunch that nothing good will come of my continued participation, I shall withdraw from the discussion at this point and contemplate issues of clarity in the usage of pronouns.
Good move, Steve. Any time you want to explore these issues seriously, I’m at your disposal.
Steve, as far as Hendricks’s intent – well, his statement in regard to that intent didn’t mention a meta-commentary. Hendricks stated, “The intention was that the pictures, as a cover on a forthcoming magazine, might be used to view logic from a somewhat humorous and untraditional perspective appealing to larger audience which the magazine covers.” His words, not mine.
As a female student interested in logic, carefully contemplating what courses to take, I can tell you precisely what those pictures would have said to *me*:
“It is my fullest expectation that the young women who enroll in these classes can look forward to a bright future in in the broad and growing field of pornography, where I expect that they will find the challenges to be particularly suited to their talents, and where they will undoubtedly earn the respect and admiration of their colleagues – at least until they finish puberty.”
It might actually have been a meta-commentary, maybe, if the parties in the shirts and mini-kilts had been young men, or better still, older (and, presumably, powerful) men. THAT would have been humorous and an untraditional perspective. It’s different when the majority, the powerful, have fun poked at them. It’s fresh and unusual to see (male) professors in roles which are traditionally assigned to women, especially young women (thanks, manga!): they are objects to be subject to the male gaze and, with any luck, used for sexual gratification. There’s nothing new or fresh or funny about that. It’s the same old thing – at least for the female students.
And it would certainly encourage me to look elsewhere for classes of interest to me.
This whole thing only gets stranger the more I learn about it:
http://choiceandinference.com/2012/02/20/philosophy-security-advisory-system/#comments
Wow, that is nutty. While I do worry about the power that Leiter has in the philosophical community, in this case I don’t think he’s done much more than report on and explain the outcry.
Weirder still is that people are defending Hendricks. I’ve been asking my students how they would feel if I posed on my course webpage surrounded by beefcake. They are appropriately horrified, look appalled and sputter, and we all have a good laugh. Of course, turning the tables is not nearly the same given the serious gender inequity in philosophy, but it’s especially funny in the “feminist philosophies” class!