Leaders need followers

This was originally published on my {distill} blog site but moved here as I’ve made that more of a technical focus blog site

20 years after I graduated, I returned to my university to see how things had changed. The buildings hadn’t changed but it was a different world inside, and none more striking than the most imposing building on the campus; the library. Now this is a library with some history as it is was at Hull University where Philip Larkin worked as the head librarian and whilst I still have a soft spot for Hull, Philip Larkin wasn’t so enamoured. He wrote:

“I’m settling down in Hull all right. Every day I sink a little further.”

The library building is the most imposing building on the campus, grey and tall, but it has a fabulous view from the top floor. I’d spent a bit of time in the library, mainly around the not-actually-that-dusty philosophy books although I did once venture into a section that had books that touched on the occult.^[I had searched for the Devil of Loudon by Aldous Huxley but didn’t take it out and, to this day, still haven’t read it.]

It was breathtaking how modern everything was inside Brynmor Jones library. Whilst the exterior hadn’t changed, there was now a glass fronted lift and comfortable seating areas and plenty of plug points you’d find in any respectable coffee shop. Gone, though, were the banks of computers necessary in my day as so few people owned one. There were a few computers dotted about but these were only to access the library catalogue. Shockingly, some areas, like Computer Science, had fewer books than I expected, I’m guessing, because so much can be accessed electronically.

Inevitably, I drifted to the philosophy section and, to my delight, I was greeted with rows upon rows of books. The first journal I picked up was a lucky find as it contained an article called: Why flatulence is funny and what was even better was that my little one was just at the right age to find the first paragraph utterly hilarious. We giggled loudly, disturbing the studious atmosphere. For your delectation here is the extract:

Toot. Pass gas. Break wind. Cut the cheese. Float an air biscuit. Burp from behind. Blow the brown horn. The backfire, bant, bucksnort, booty bomb, colon cologne, drifter, fanny bubble, gasser, gurgler, moon beam, nether belch, pants puffer, pooh tune, rip-snort, sphincter whistle, thunder dumpling, tush tickler, and trouser cough. These are synonyms for a bodily function that is as natural as breathing, eating, or sleeping. Yet unlike other physiological functions, the ‘flatus’ is a source of endless humor – perhaps more so than any other subject in human experience. But why are farts funny? That is a question that is both serious and philosophically interesting.

Philosophy is not a dusty old subject, although it’s often expected to be just that that. It’s a subject that has existed in its own right, as well as integrated into other subjects like religion and science, or with economics and psychology. I even had a lecturer who had studied maths and philosophy which, at the time, I thought was a strange combination. I realise now that philosophy is part of every subject in one way or another and makes sense to be combined with maths because of the overlap of logical and critical thinking.

Indeed, philosophers like Bertrand Russell, who inspired me to choose philosophy after I read some of his work^[I had read about how a table is predominately made up of space as the molecules are not that dense. Consequently, how can we say a table is really there and why don’t we just walk straight through walls?], was also a fine mathematician. Along with Alfred North Whitehead, another mathematician, they wrote 360 pages to prove definitively that 1 + 1 = 2^[This really puts into perspective the weakness of the twitter hate directed at @kareem_carr when he wrote a thread on interpreting 2 + 2 = 5. The issue was that this particular equation appeared in George Orwell’s book, 1984, and so was seen from the perspective of thought control and dismissing fundamental mathematics. The ‘arguments’ though were often, I felt, an excuse for abuse but Kareem’s good humoured and levelled responses transcended the vitriol.] in “Principia Mathematica”.

Different ways of thinking

I was lucky with my degree in that it was heavily weighted to the final year, so I was able to take modules in other courses without much fear of affecting my final degree class. I studied in 3 subject areas, history, physics and religion.

The history module went badly as I quickly realised; I don’t think like a historian. I had been trained in philosophy so I questioned the question, didn’t questioned the ‘facts’ and, I don’t know, just constantly posed questions which didn’t go down too well.

The second subject was a physics module designed to get the scientists to think about their place in society. I absolutely aced it because I was used to writing essays and it was wholly philosophical in its approach.

The final module was in religious studies and I had a lecturer who respected philosophy deeply and thought of himself as a philosopher. The essay question was also very close to my final dissertation (about morality) so I, sort of, plagiarised myself, if that’s technically possible.

I’m not certain, but I do wonder if those two successful essays, the physics and the religious studies, would have been graded lower by my philosophy lecturers because, whilst the lecturers were rigorous in their marking, I did exceptionally well in them compared to my usual results.

What was so interesting at that time, and which I appreciated very quickly given my poor mark in the history module, was that we fundamentally thought differently. It’s something that intrigues me even today as I can see how medics think differently to patients, analysts think differently to commissioners, and managers think differently to juniors.

New subject areas

Arguing is pretty fundamental to philosophy but it’s the way you argue that matters. There is a structure to it and an approach to subjects that is core to all areas of philosophy. But still, specialisms have changed.

In my day I was offered the chance to study metaphysics and ethics and I chose ethics but, in those early days of the internet and computing, there was never any talk (at least in my lectures) of data ethics. This is clearly a growing subject area with big data and Artificial Intelligence, so much so that the UK Government Digital Service even have a Data Ethics Team who, this month, have run a workshop to explore the skills a data ethicist should have.

Complementing this they released a short survey for data ethics professionals (all sectors) aimed at identifying these skills. I was surprised that the first question, whilst comprehensively detailed, lacked a point blank tick box for philosophy and it is bundled in with other social science subjects:

According to you, which of the following skills are the most important in data/AI ethics? Choose up to six. *

• Ability to quickly read and interpret complex documents from a range of sources and distill to what is relevant
• Knowledge of/ background in social science (anthropology, economics, sociology, philosophy etc)
• Problem-solving skills
• Experience translating technical information for a non-technical audience, and vice versa
• Domain knowledge of existing schools of thought and exemplar models of data ethics in practice
• Communication skills
• Data modelling, data cleansing, and data enrichment skills
• Data literacy
• Project management skills
• Networking and engagement skills; working collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams and stakeholder from data science and other areas (policy, social science)
• Proven IT and mathematical skills
• Broad policy analysis and evaluation experience
• Ability to draw together, analyse, and critically evaluate information
• Sound judgement on relevant information, stakeholders, and value-driven activities
• Applied maths, statistics, and scientific practices
• Logical and creative thinking skills
• Understanding analysis across the product life cycle
• Quality assurance, validation and data linkage abilities
• Data engineering and manipulation
• Other:

I liked some of these points as they look like they are breaking down what philosophical thought demands but none really felt like what I learned in my degree. Yes, I learned to quickly read and interpret complex documents from a range of sources and distill to what is relevant but I used the skills listed in the Times Higher Education to be able to do it:

The skills learned on a philosophy degree, including clear and analytical thinking, persuasive writing and speaking, innovative questioning and effective reasoning, give a solid foundation for entering the workforce and are beneficial in careers that require problem-solving and assessing information from various angles.

Balancing domain knowledge with skill

Working in analysis, I see this quite often, where people are analytical thinkers combining their domain^[By domain I mean subject area, so working in healthcare, my data knowledge is around the NHS and its structures.] knowledge with analysis. The same with philosophy. After all, it’s a subject that everyone can do to some extent. But what is worrying is when those that specialise in those fields, the analysts and the philosophers, get sidelined because people forget that they are experts in their respective fields.

Many people can get to grips with the intricacies of law, particularly when it affects them, but they are not trained lawyers and if you needed legal representation you would still go to the lawyer or solicitor. If you are working with statistics it’s a good idea to include a statistician or data scientist and if you need mental health support, you go to a clinical psychologist and not someone who has read a lot about psychology. But how many ethics committees or data ethics group actually include an ethicist or even something akin to a ‘professional philosopher’? Is it more important to have domain knowledge and just practice the philosophy or should it be the other way around?

I don’t really have the answer but my inclination, having studied this subject, is that you need a practising ethicist. Someone steeped in the subject both within specialisms and who is aware and up to date with general philosophical principles. It’s worth remembering that philosophy is not a series of facts to learn and regurgitate; it’s a way of thinking. It demands that you are both a deep thinker and also ask naive questions - of yourself and of others. You need to be curious and comfortable with uncertainty. Not the quantifiable uncertainty that statistics offers, but the uncertainty you get when you can see both sides of the story (or many sides of the story as is often the case). Philosophy is a discipline that should not be overlooked as an entity in its own right, even though it’s one of the few subjects that combines so imperceptibly with others.

I’d be interested to know and talk to any professional applied ethicists or any ethics committees with ethicists. My contact details can be found here.

Thumbnail photo is of a library with lights by Janko Ferlic from Pexels