A Philosopher Looks at the "Academic Bill of Rights"

Academe, Sep/Oct 2006 by Smith, Kurt

What happens when you apply the standards of logic to an illogical argument?

A political scientist could probably help us understand the impact of the so-called Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) across the nation. And a student of government might be able to tell us whether legislation based on it is likely to pass muster in a particular slate. It takes a philosopher, however, to explain the faulty logic behind the ABOR-the brainchild of right-wing activist David Horowitz, who advocates government oversight of university curricula, day-to-day coursework, and classroom discussions on college campuses. So come with me through a course in basic logic to see not only why the ABOR is unnecessary, but also why its central claim about the academy is false.

In his attack on higher education, Horowitz looks suspiciously like a sophist of ancient Greece. By the time of Socrates, sophists had earned a reputation much like that of today's lawyers in that their primary aim was seen as simply to win a debate; they had little or no interest in the pursuit of truth. Folks who did not have truth on their side would often hire sophists to make their cases or to teach them how to do so by making weaker arguments appear stronger.

Protagoras, a famous sophist, was a relativist, believing that all truth was in principle open to challenge; that is, no one had a monopoly on the truth. Simplistic versions of epistemic (knowledge-based) relativism are incoherent; they go something like: "There is no absolute truth, and this is absolutely true." Which brings us to Horowitz and the ABOR, which states:

From its first formulation in the General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, the concept of academic freedom has been premised on the idea that human knowledge is a never ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that no partly or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom.1

Here, Horowitz claims that the concept of academic freedom, as formulated by the AAUP, is grounded in epistemic relativism: "there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge." Because the claim to academic freedom rights is based on relativism, he contends, professors abuse their students when they teach as if they have a monopoly on the truth. The ABOR is Horowitz's remedy. It requires professors to consider different sides of an issue, as Horowitz told The Temple [University] News in January 2006. "You can't get a good education," he said, "if they're only telling you half the story."

But even a superficial study of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, formulated jointly by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, would show that the AAUP takes no epistemological stand on relativism, either for or against it. Contrary to Horowitz's contention, therefore, the concept of academic freedom as formulated by the AAUP is not based on epistemic relativism.

If, as Horowitz appears to believe, the ABOR is needed only if the concept of academic freedom as formulated by the AAUP is based on epistemic relativism, and if the concept of academic freedom as formulated by the AAUP is not based on epistemic relativism, it follows that the ABOR is not needed. To avoid this conclusion, Horowitz would have to stop connecting the ABOR to the concept of academic freedom as formulated by the AAUP and simply claim that regardless of what the AAUP says, the concept of academic freedom as he understands it is based on epistemic relativism. Of course, Horowitz provides no evidence or argument for thinking that epistemic relativism is the form of epistemology operating throughout academe; he simply assumes that it is. Without this assumption, he loses the need for the ABOR. Whether he likes it or not, Horowitz must own his assess ment. So let us examine logically his claim that academe is rooted in epistemic relativism.

A Lesson in Logic

It seems to me that a minimal necessary condition for being able to challenge some claim P is to he able to conceive of P's opposite. That is, it must be possible to conceive of the conditions that would render P false. If one could not conceive of P's opposite, in what sense could one be thinking that P was false? And if one could not conceive of P's being false, in what sense could one lake oneself to be challenging P? The minimal necessary condition can be stated thus: P is challengeable only if the opposite of P is conceivable.

There are several points worth noting here. The logical structure of the minimal necessary condition (it is a conditional statement) guarantees certain things. First, given that P is challengeable, the claim guarantees that the opposite of P is conceivable. Second, given that the opposite of P is not conceivable, the claim guarantees that P is not challengeable. So far, so good.

There are things that the claim does not guarantee, however. For example, given that the opposite of P is conceivable, the claim does not guarantee that P is challengeable. This logic may look unnecessarily technical, even ugly. But the sophist banks on precisely such a reaction-Horowitz is no exception. After all, by getting one to ignore such details, a sophist can make a weaker argument appeal stronger.