In a recently published study, entitled "Sex Differences in Intellectual Performance: Analysis of a Large Cohort of Competitive Chess Players," by Christopher F. Chabris and Mark E. Glickman, and published in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science [abstract here], the authors conclude two things, among others, about the differences in men's ratings (ELO) and the ratings of females, and about the oft-noted disparity between the numbers of male GMs and female GMs. I note these two findings below. (These are summaries taken from Chessbase.com and are not quotes from the study. More talk on the study can be found at the blog "Pure Pedentary.")

The claims:
(1) The disparity between men and women in ability exists at the beginning and persists across all age groups.

(2) If you look at the participation rate of women and relate that to performance, you find that in cases where the participation rate of women and men is equal the disparity in ability vanishes.

Now, it is contradictory to claim both that there are innate differences between the sexes and also that these differences are non-existent when participation rates are held constant. We would expect the opposite if the differences were innate. Hence, the innateness claim should be dropped as an explanation of the disparity and the influence of societal and familial pressures on retention should be further examined. And while I doubt any serious persons need evidence for the mental equality of the sexes, it is nice to find it, suitably deciphered, of course.

In Charles Isherwood's NYT review of Brian Friel’s play “Translations," here, we find the following sentence:

In “Translations” Mr. Friel celebrates the sweet music of human speech, but the play also explores the seriocomic truth that language divides as easily as it unites, and sometimes fumbles and stalls just when we need it to soar.

So, let's call the original truth A, but notice that A as it stands is ambiguous. Let one disambiguation be called D1 and another D2.

D1 Language use can cause divisions within and can cause unity among various cohorts of a population.

D2 Language can divide and it can unite [sentences].

D2 is trivially true (just think of &-introduction and &-elimination rules). Hence, it can't be partly a serious truth. Can it be comical? I'm not sure. D1 is non-trivial and true. Is that fact funny? I submit that it isn't. What can be funny, on the other hand, are instances of language either dividing or uniting some members of a population. Yet this isn't the general "seriocomic truth" referred to in Isherwood's review. Isherwood's claim should have been about utterances of language. And these, as we are all painfully aware, can be quite terrible.

So, we're interviewing for two different positions right now at UK, one of which is a phil. science/mind job. The talk by our first mind/science candidate inspired this post. Though I was critical of the talk, I really liked the candidate (who shall remain nameless here as we've got two more to go). Here's my question:

How seriously should we watch out for positions which entail/imply something like what troubled Kuhn, namely, and to put it into Kuhn's terms and not those of the speaker, that people living under different paradigms are living in different worlds?

Such an implication for me constitutes grounds for rejection of the position (and is this a priori rejection?). But is there a way to make it palatable? When we give up the analytic/synthetic distinction, as I'm want to do, we thereby give up the scheme/content distinction (as we should do). So does this mean that we are forced into not being able to talk about what remains unchanged from paradigm to paradigm? I answer 'no'. The reasons for rejecting the analytic/synthetic distinction are epistemic (or at least they are not metaphysical). But the position that allows talk of a stable world remaining from paradigm to paradigm is realism--metaphysical realism, that is. I conclude then that one can choose realism, reject the analytic synthetic distinction, give up on scheme/content, and all the while avoid the ackward locution of a paradigm (or something similar) "making" or "constituting" the world's objects, so long as one keeps a firm grip on the epistemology/metaphysics distinction.

[By the way, I know this is old hat, but it's what's on my mind. I promise my next post will be back on semantics and truth--specifically on translation, realism, and externalism. Tentative title: On Translation, Realism, and Externalism.]

CALL FOR PAPERS

MISSISSIPPI PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION meeting on April 13-14, 2007

The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg

FEATURED SPEAKER:

CLAYTON SULLIVAN (Professor Emeritus, The University of Southern Mississippi)

"The Case for Resentment"

Submit abstracts (250 word maximum) as e-mail attachments to morgan.rempel@usm.edu by Friday, March 9, 2007

Note: flyer to be added later.

So, I've been travelling to the Mississippi coast to take care of some business and will be back by Saturday. But I've bought a house and will be moving within a month from Lexington, KY. I'll be getting into the philosophy scene in MS by submitting something to the MPA 2007 meeting. Information on it to follow. Long story short, that's why I haven't posted.