Terence Rajivan Edward

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has a theory of male and female brains. This is how I present it, so as to avoid certain ambiguities (which I pointed out in the now defunct journal Philosophical Pathways and which were independently "implied" in the economics literature previously; I think no one there has thought to connect their work to the psychology literature or else the journey from thought to explicit realization is a long one in economics - a slow metabolism discipline, it casually seems to me, though the impression was formed some years ago). The male brain on average is more oriented towards systematizing, the analysis or construction of systems, systems being governed by (distinctive?) rules or laws. Baron-Cohen focuses on paradigmatically scientific and technical systems (physics, electric plugs, etc). The female brain is on average more oriented towards empathizing: intuitively grasping the thoughts and emotions of others and the requirements of social situations and responding appropriately (ethically, for Baron-Cohen). But there can be males with female brains, based on their dispositions (empathy orientation), and females with male brains (systems orientation), says Baron-Cohen. Now given Baron-Cohen's theory, one expects realistic novelists to be female brained, whatever their chromosomes. They depict realistic situations and how they are experienced. But have you ever tried to write a novel? There is a science of novel writing too (at least for me, though I use "you"). You try to write a novel about some experiences of yours and those of another person, of course, but it ends at about 3000 words and even that was a struggle, and at least one of the characters is no longer human. This was not your aim. Then you give up focusing on you and your experiences and those belonging to people who make others jealous and just try writing about your uncle. Suddenly you can write. You planned to write a little story, but then you write another, and another, and another - you might be able to do a Russian length novel even. Episodic perhaps, but good in its way. Is it the same for others? Do they find this character easy to write fictions about? Experiments need to be done. You try writing another novel. It is difficult. Change the main character and see what happens. Suddenly the writing flows. A scientific rule of a rudimentary kind is incorporated into your novelistic technique! ("Hello, my name is S---- and I believe that novel writing is not always without work"? Don’t pursue a defamation case against me for this evidence-based suggestion please. Note to the Whitworth Gallery: the places I worked after the University of Manchester, with their seemingly evil managers, let me mostly work in my preferred place.) I would like to thank Victoria Baths, amongst other reasons, because I used them to make a stand up comedy joke. It always works! Inductive reasoning problem: I need to thank Victorian museum 1, Victorian museum 2… I need to thank all Victorian museums.

PART ONE (ONE MILLION?). I am developing this game theoretic approach to psychiatric treatment, or game something - Qbasic time. You have psychiatric issues apparently. There are two options for you: put in an NHS hospital and medicated (injections) OR kept out of hospital and left alone by the NHS. Your aim is to achieve the latter. Every person you meet has a preference for the former option or the latter option (for you certainly). And people on Instagram too: "hey, I used to be famous!" What decision strategies will you use? (What unusual option on her map will Carrie Jenkins take?) Transitivity of preferences axiom and the gang in place. PART TWO. According to Jane Gallop, successful teaching requires the student to experience transference love towards the teacher and you cannot ban even consensual etc romantic relations (either short of sex or including sex) between staff and students at university, or you might as well ban teaching. How robust is this claim across different student bodies? Many home students at University of Manchester in recent years require a very strong loving transference, I believe. "It is just a course; do the course; and move on." "NO!..." PART THREE. I am relying on an Amia Srinivasan 2020 (?) paper in Yale Law Journal for the information about Gallop's view. Should I? "Hoax Yale, hoax Yale, hoax Yale... Bonus point: you got this loser as well." Disambiguation time?!

But I am 100%! I have the casual impression that Miriam Ronzoni thinks this: "You think you are the fairest but I can actually be fairer than you, because I am not an insensitive and irresponsible child." (A thought which probably has plenty of evidence in its favour!) But imagine a fairness game. You will be given more and more advanced cases to deal with. At some point, if you are clever (as I for some reason believe you are), you will exit the game. I remember asking a late student if she would write on a certain question and she said, "No, I am not doing that." But what about your assistant, who is not clever? She or he or they etc wants your job. But she is not clever enough to understand the issues. Are you going to fire her or tell her, "I am quiting because I am clever and you should quit because you are stupid"? You will be regarded as an insensitive person, just like me. Or will you quit and leave the assistant to enter into your vacated adjudicatory role? You will be regarded as irresponsible, just like me. I believe the posh Englishman has some solution to this problem, which favours the "less clever." They are better at the fairness game somehow; don't ask me how. But, anyway, I don't know what you will do. I thought this might help you, or someone else maybe, apologies for using your name. Do you even use this database?

Those in favour of a revolution in economics at the University of Manchester seem to favour writing essays on economics which are not mathematical. Also I presume the essays are meant to be longer than these micro-essays I write. ("So that is what these are." Who knows? Who cares? “We need to specify the rules of the game clearly.”) The problem I anticipate is this. An aphorist emerges and he (or she) communicates in very brief remarks and no one reads your essays, or a set of aphorists emerge. The general intellectual public do not read them, your essays that is, despite your desire for their readership (on the assumption that there even is such a thing) and specialists do not ("I am busy at the moment; when you have put it all in one of those neat documents you make, call me"). There just seem to be two main options: go aphorist or go mathematical. "What about readers who want information at a more leisurely pace?" Interesting. What if there are (or is) a tiny number of topics which do not get killed off? “I am tired of this leisurely essayist.” “I am tired of them too.” "Who has the actual talent?" "Yes, who has the actual talent?" "I have." "No, I have."

Let us send out some medical information, on the assumption that the NHS wants this (the UK National Health Service, that is, Instagramers worldwide; or British National Health Service if that be more accurate or instantly informative). In September 2023, I was admitted to hospital, diagnosed with having undergone a psychotic episode. I was found in the street acting as Simone de Beauvoir. There is a point where a French thinker disappears from wider intellectual consciousness in Britain: e.g. Bergson, who reads Bergson now or even knows his name? I was thinking that there was someone here who was hoping that this is happening with de Beauvoir, and hopefully soon with Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida. And I knew that shouting as de Beauvoir was going to cause friction, for this reason amongst others. "You are keeping that person in memory." But did I ever believe I was de Beauvoir? Certainly not. Anyway, after October 2023, I realized that I had a philosophical system based on a premise from Paul Valéry. It is presented in my paper "Presentation of my philosophico-poetical system, McDowellian!" When I clearly conceived this system, which I had no intention of developing by the way, I thought this: I am definitely not Simone de Beauvoir then! But why think that if I never believed I was Simone de Beauvoir? I know but now I know that I know? Probably just a badly worded thought. (The NHS psychiatrist's view? "You needed medication to protect you from the delusion that you are de Beauvoir. You don't protect yourself by building a unBeauvoir like system. That is not how we solve this problem." By the way, the title of this contribution is a variation on a dating show at Creatures of the Night Comedy Club: So you think you want funny?)

I have the impression that various workers in the National Health Service who have the fortune or misfortune of reading my works are of this opinion: anyone can do what you do, or quite a lot of people anyway. Doctors, nurses, receptionists, administrators, and cleaners even have this opinion? Well, maybe not the doctors I hope. Even the doctors? I try to defend myself against these critics, whom I suspect are scratching an itch that it is ill-advised to scratch. ("We know that but it is itching.") NOTE: you have to download the PDF probably; this is just the abstract.

I was reading a Guardian article on Amia Srinivasan by Rachel Cooke and she seems a bit puzzled by Srinivasan, drawing attention to a sweeping generalisation. Perhaps she will say, "Well, she is at All Souls College Oxford - there are things I don't understand." Also I wrote this contribution entitled - now what was it called?! - "An urban coco-nutter on Srinivasan versus Gallop?" I presented what I imagine is the perspective of a skilled and competent but puzzled philosopher on a Srinivasan article in a Yale law journal. Perhaps he too will say, "Well, she is at All Souls College, Oxford - there are things I don't understand." Also I imagine this. A common man who reads a bit gets into a conversation with Srinivasan. He asks her what she does. She says, "I am an essayist." He says, "An essayist? But doesn't everyone write essays, in high school, and lots of people in universities and beyond them, people in newspapers? And aren't there computers to write essays these days?" Perhaps such conversation is alien to her. “I am at All Souls College, Oxford”? I imagine her saying something else in reply which, from her perspective, is perhaps an insane choice of response: "Well, maybe there are many better than me in the essay field and computer software also competes, but I have got some essays online which you can read. Try them." I think he would be more impressed by a novel, a novel in the bookshop. I suppose I would be impressed too, but also I wrote this story with a character called Uncle. And then I wrote another story featuring him and another story, and it seemed this is turning into a novel. I stopped. I said to myself, "I don't want to be a novelist. I want to write essays." There is actually another semi-novel on the laptop! I had to give up on that too. (My friend has written a whole novel and tried to get it published and it seems he worked hard on it. But the talent difference between us is maybe slight. What is going on there? He tries to write a novel and I have to try not to write a novel!) My worry about Srinivasan is that in a pairwise choice there is a lesser essayist from various points of view, but he makes more sense to these people (“Yes, he is insane but 95% comprehensible to me nevertheless”?) and they will say, “We’re not bad people. Let’s just do the honest thing and vote for someone who actually makes sense to us, despite his vicious satires of us. At least our points of view are taken into account and debated with even.”

Possibly this can happen with the roles of the sexes reversed, lovers of the chromosome. Imagine a women's college. There are rival groups in this college. And the rivalries are fierce. The college management have decided to admit a few males into this college. But the males must prove themselves to be just males, males who make the fair choice (I am using "just" and "fair" interchangeably, when just refers to justice), because they are going to have to get involved in some disputes. A test is a set. For several years, the only males who pass the test are ones we consider to be just by character. But some mathematical males say, "Hey, we want to get into this college too; it looks fun." And they develop a mathematical system for figuring out the fair choice. It works and they get in. Eventually a college head emerges who only takes the mathematical males, not the ones who are just by character. What do you think? I have the casual impression of a woman who does not take the political writings of the just-by-character male: she cuts those from her course and even cuts the just-by-character male out of her team in general. Why? Maybe she will reply: "The ones considered so far are all heterosexual. I know this type. In a choice between me and some slightly worse but conventionally attractive female, this female gets chosen. What justice!" What would Bernard Williams say in response ? I can only think of one witty reply on his behalf. But it does not sound like him, which is one strike against it. Also it is likely to produce sexist amusement amongst some males. That is another strike against it. Three strikes and you are out? It may be useful for some feminists to know too, but I would rather not say it at all, believe it or not. The reply is: "I would not choose that attractive female, because of what I would do to her," followed by a wink perhaps.

I was thinking to get the carpets in my apartment replaced with a wooden floor, or some kind of hard floor - vinyl flooring or whatever. "How do you know about vinyl flooring?" Some family members of mine encouraged me in this direction a lot and I got quotes and more. Carpet, who wants carpet these days? But wait a minute: should one listen to such family? If you imagine the UK as a video game, metaphorically speaking, have they ever been in this level which I am in? "Yes, we have actually - you underestimate us"? "But it is not a video game and you cannot compare something as profound as life to something as superficial as a video game." Etc, etc. Okay, but what if I somehow end up living with a villain, a real villain, and she somehow takes the bed, the one bed, the lovely bed? I can sleep on the carpet, but on the hard floor probably not. "These are just the paranoid fears of a mad person." Okay, but they have some relationship to experience. When I was in the psychiatry ward of North Manchester General Hospital in October and November 2024 (after I was forcibly brought back there, having escaped), this patient in my dormitory was troubling me. ("It is not your dormitory." Well, I thought of it as totally mine! Is that the delusion you want to cure?) I locked myself in a bathroom and tried to sleep there instead. But the floor was so hard. Is there some sense in just doing the reverse of what these family members suggest: carpet the areas which are not carpeted - the kitchen and the bathroom? My title quotes an English proverb, which may or may not be an adequate substitute for this information. Versus my own proverb "Carpet got going somehow." It is for when you think this stuff has to go (a product, a practice) and then you think, "How did it even begin actually?"

I was reading a Guardian 2021 article based on an interview with Amia Srinivasan. She tells of how, to get into All Souls College Oxford (one of the other colleges I have heard of), you had to write an essay on a single word. She was on a tour or something, and the example word given to her was: coconut! Beyond its normal use, it is a UK slang term, used to describe a person, a brown Asian on the outside but white on the inside (the character of a white person, not an excess of white blood cells). (Similar terms I have heard: oreo cookie for an analogous black person; yellow cab for a far Eastern person who is at the beck and call of a white person, like a mere taxi - well not the taxis you know perhaps.) The “one word exam” soon ceased, after Srinivasan passed on another word - reproduction - and became a college member. Should one read between the lines? "Exam we have used for decades over, because there will soon be others of this type; oh no, innovation time"??? Let's do “coconut” a bit. Right now, no cheating, no preparation, honest! Does she even know the meaning specified above: she is too clever to be allowed to play with other kids? Well, I say kids, but around 70 these Oxford essayists die, don't they? One thing I am surprised by: the use of coconut to describe a person who does not study one of a limited set of disciplines, maths or biology focused. Who makes those Bollywood etc films you watch? Accountants? (Niv Prakasam on Instagram: all the Indians good at maths leave.) I noticed something in class once, 2019 I think, which I probably should not report. There were four or five locals, one a white male student, described to me as a gentleman coming into your class, all the others minorities. An Asian (brown) girl and boy sit together and both misbehave until I separate them. The girl continues to misbehave but the boy only misbehaves when put with the gentleman. My theory, from this experience and others, is that various minorities have learnt: “if this type of white is not happy in class, I am causing unhappiness for you” (the Asian girl in this case, the boy not exactly). The Asian boy soon finds another girlfriend, probably an I-am-not-backing-down-against-this-gentleman-type-get-back-in-the-ring-now-type! The sensible option with the other sex, where is it?! After age 30 only? "What has this to do with the word set?" Some people who use this term "coconut" are servants of this type too probably. Going back to the disciplines, I wonder whether if you are above a certain level in any profession as a minority, they take away your minority friends. Let's put you with our local mathematicians, etc. Going back to 2019 stuff, you sue me for confidentiality breach and I shall say this: I have to write something more on Srinivasan or Timothy WIlliamson will become volcanic I bet. "But you are insane?" Yes, that takes priority over the coconut or not question. But should it? The West with its famous rationality cannot really produce mad people, can it?

I recall watching one of those television shows which depicts other primates in ways that seem human-all-too-human, to borrow an expression from a German philosopher (Nietzsche, in translation anyway). This is what I recall: one of the primates dips into the water, testing how it feels. It feels good. Soon they are splashing about. Others join them. At first caution, then, when the environment has been found to be safe, a party. Who amongst us is not like that? But actually some humans pose a challenge to the comparison. Once there were students who came to the University of Manchester and quietly broke a rule, played music audibly in the computer cluster for example; then a bit more audibly, and even more so. But then another kind of student appeared: they start off with loud music, until reminded of the rule, at which point they turn it down to a still audible level, and then further upon another reminder (one hopes). They just have a different habitus (a set of dispositions one brings to a field, or institution in this case)? Or documentary primatologists should crack the puzzle (these students know in advance that there is a lack of risk?)? Also you get new lecturers - not the desk-related ones, I presume - who fill the curriculum of their course with their allies, some of whom seem stodgy reading indeed, and then slowly achieve an almost ideally balanced curriculum. What is going on there? A complaint came in? Tactics beyond my simple-minded comprehension? Did they do this previously? The course giver was the most docile of Oxford postgrads? (Sometimes I ask students why they came here: “I didn’t get in to the LSE,” “I didn’t get in to the LSE,” “I didn’t get in to the LSE” and so on. By the way, there are people who hint to me that I would have fit in better at the LSE, and one lecturer more or less told me that. But the demand for an LSE-imitation-or... is all over the School of Social Sciences, can we not rid ourselves of the 10% who think everything-in-its-proper-cultural-place?)

There is an old objection to liberal multicultural projects, which is that people's group identities are so strong that these projects of different ethnic groups living together cannot work: there will be significant violence. Recent terrorist incidents (usually associated with radical Islam), and perhaps earlier terrorism, probably convinced quite a few people of this argument in the UK (though Muslims are a religious not an ethnic group). But there is a variation on the objection, which does not anticipate violence. What it anticipates is a kind of economic problem. There is a skilled worker in a field - a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a builder, etc. - but the level at which he (or she) works at varies considerably depending on whether "these are my people or not." "I am a civilized person, I don't become violent, but I do the minimum for these folk and work lovingly well for these other folk." The problem is probably old: it was just there with religious divides, and perhaps still is. I personally interact in a civil manner with art gallery folk, but perhaps I am the enemy here! A Czech builder did impressive work for my mother, in my eyes anyway Multiculturalism goal!!!!!!?.

LEMONCAKE? In October 2024, I had a poem published (2 lines long) and I was encouraged by Greater Manchester Mental Health to join a poetry group. I went to the central library of Manchester, Saint Peter's Square, and asked if there was a poetry group there. I was given the date of the next meeting and I went. I turned up a little late and ate some cake. The host (or compere or MC) had a very noticeable London accent, which reminded me somewhat of Professor Julian Dodd's accent. It was all white people (about 30 of them! must disambiguate), me (Asian) and one black woman, who appeared comfortable with postcool older poetry folk - it was mostly people older than me there. I'm not racist, but there are a lot of brown and yellow people in this city, and probably black too. The star poet on this occasion was a local poet who read a punky poem with lines (like?) "Don't you step on my astroturf, Diane, don't you dare" and was associated with a working class poetry initiative. Fiery! I found out how to book a spot to read poetry myself, though I planned to read stuff-like-what-gets-rejected. Next month, I read some poetry. It was all white people this time, and maybe one black woman again (the three or so Asians in the network had not yet been ordered to come in?). I read two of my 1920s-New York-modernism-or-universal poems. One opened thus: "My head is an envelope addressed to the world/ Open it stranger/ And bring the news to the people". The host commented on the imagery within each participant's poetry apart from mine, but he told me, "We will hopefully see you again." Can't complain. In the break between poetry readings, a young woman opposite me struck up a conversation. She had blonde curly Polish hair, and, I suppose, looked to me much like the person I spoke to most in economics, a girl/woman with blonde curly hair and of Polish background. (I spoke to 4 Poles there and then wrote up my findings as an in-joke.) She commented on the images in my poetry, told me she had been on a course and told me of a Newcastle saying: "Shy birds get nowt." I interpreted that as a suggestion to do with seduction, but didn't take it up, merely asked her if she would be attending again. She said yes. I felt I would never return and never did, despite encouragement from an economics friend. A Macclesfield poet-man complemented my poetry too. CARROTCAKE? At the time I was thinking to apply for a creative writing course, an expensive university one, with the money I made from investments, while insane apparently, and my 2 published lines as the ticket in (it is 5 now, reducing portfolio submission fun). But here is a comedy sketch suggesting what would have happened. Week 8. I am leaving class with my friend. I say, "I have got a B grade again." She says, "I started off at C and now I have got A grades. You can improve." A cat comes up to me and says, "Hey, I don't read much poetry, but I liked your poetry." (Cats don't actually talk much, by the way.) A dog comes up to me and says much the same. A tree and a cloud do too. She graduates and publishes in fancy journals, while my struggles with the creative writing professors go on for decades. (Is this a bit Tracey Emin? Apologies for any unanticipated offensiveness. By the way, a memory: this black man in psychiatry ward looks Hendrixy, this other brown man has volumes of poetry probably...)

I have been reading Carrie Jenkins' poem Blue. It opens with this line: "Five years ago I started drowning. That’s how long it takes." But what does it mean? Because drowning does not take five years, I believe. Jenkins is a philosopher too. Is it some sort of attack on ordinary inductive reasoning? It took person 1 five minutes, person 2 four minutes, person 3 twenty minutes... Enough cases and you generalize. It is less than a day always and never 5 years. (Of course, we just rely on testimony - testimony which is a bit troubling, when you think about it.) But here the poet says that it is five years. Maybe you have to imagine the sea, or ocean or whatever the body of water it is, as a being with agency, a person even, and the sea will not do its usual job of drowning people who drop into it, for this person anyway. The waves somehow push her up and she never properly submerges, for the first five years anyway. Dead fish float along for supper. Eventually the sea will yield, will carry out its duty or the next stage of it. But what if you don't think the sea is a person? How do you find value in these lines then? I don't know. It is powerful though, this thought of the sea that refuses to drown the poet. I felt its power; I couldn't quite walk straight on the street, which may have alarmed someone. Is it a good idea to get involved with this much poetic power? I have been working on my own poem, a little poem, for some time, which never feels quite right: "foolish stars/ declares the moon/ location location location." (This thought just occurred to me. Jenkins' poem is a response to the Phil Collins' song In the Air Tonight: if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand...)

This paper is an imitation and mostly does not express my own point of view. Doing it perhaps manifests a lack of ideal levels of impulse control, or conformity to the norms of analytic philosophy, but I think the perspective presented is very much worth considering and needs to be in our literature and I find it easier to present like this. The paper argues that life without a government and legal system to resolve disputes will be extremely violent, more violent than even Hobbes imagined perhaps. The hysterical subject will perform violent actions with the aim of provoking the law into existence, unable to tolerate life with a low amount of structure, even if they often rail against a sufficient structure of rules once in place. NOTE: you probably need to download the PDF; above is just the abstract.

I imagine a certain lecturer in philosophy reading Amia Srinivasan's "Sex as a Pedagogical Failure" published in Yale Law Journal. STAGE 1. He is impressed with the level of scholarship, such as the many quotes and the knowledge of sources. "She is probably a better legal scholar than my legal scholar," he thinks. "But some of these claims are bizarre, such as the account of why people become lecturers, and there is too much going on and I don't remember her arguments very well." STAGE 2. He reads my "The musical chairs model and the Amia Srinivasan-Jane Gallop post-Freudian dispute," online today, and thinks, "I see a big conflict here, the sort that you can make a whole paper out of. I am not a total fool. I understand that a patient might develop feelings for an analyst and similarly a student for a teacher. I also understand that post-Freudians will depart from their master, and perhaps there is a limited set of ways in which they can do and still claim to inherit his teaching, as all too briefly suggested by this contribution of Edward. But the aim of Freudian and post-Freudian therapy is surely to CURE the patient. And this Jane Gallop, as portrayed here, seems to be keen on entering into romantic or sexual relationships for this end, and likewise for teaching purposes, where the end is education. In either case, why is this a good idea? I side with Srinivasan totally." STAGE 3. He reads my "The transference paradox and solutions: a dreamy provincial introduction (for Amia Srinivasan?)," and thinks, "Okay I can now see the paradox. This transference thing, consisting often of loving feelings, is portrayed by the mature Freud as both obstacle and aid to therapy. One of the solutions is to deny it is an obstacle and so remove the prohibition on patient-analyst sexual relations, which is justified on the premise that there is an obstacle. But why would you enter into such relations anyway, given the end of curing people? I side with Srinivasan still. But she is paid to be a philosopher, not a legal scholar: the paradox should be in her paper and then she should be discussing solutions, bringing her impressive textual knowledge to bear on that task." STAGE 4: He reads this response from me, right now. Psychoanalysis has a somewhat magical quality. You interpret the bodily symptom correctly and it goes away (sometimes): it was expressing an unconscious desire which benefited from being put into words. And maybe a kind of magic occurs by overcoming the prohibition as well. There is a graduate student with an unresolved Oedipal complex, let us imagine - he unconsciously desires to have sexual relations with his mother. He consciously desires his analyst, an older woman, as a substitute. After sexual relations, the complex is resolved. He then happily has a long-term relationship with a woman his own age. "Strange world," the lecturer thinks, "but I am still siding with Srinivasan on teaching." ME TIME: At this point I have a worry. This lecturer is a kind of judge, and amongst the things he is judging between is me and Srinivasan. And it is unclear that I am gaining anything by these communications. Meanwhile, his perception of there being value in Srinivasan's paper has increased. "Good start, Srinivasan, but now do you versus Gallop properly. This paradox is great material between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and law." He and friends wish to know what is going on, need plenty of mothering to do so, and there is no framework of reward for the task (yet???).

You know how, there is a text of philosophical significance and one set of interpreters really specify what the text asserts (Oxfordy interpreters) and another set are prompted by a few statements into a dreamily systematic guess about its content (provincial interpreters). I have discussed this before regarding the reception of Donald Davidson in "How to read Davidson: an introduction for professionals." Related to this distinction between interpreters, I wish to discuss Freud's transference paradox in a not-close-reading way. This is the usual story. "Freud and others discovers that there is transference: the patient relates to the psychoanalyst unconsciously in terms of their relationship to past figures in the patient's history. Feelings of love often arise. Early Freud regards transference as an obstacle to successful cure by psychoanalysis. Later Freud adopts a contradictory or paradoxical position: the transference is an obstacle but also of great use for resolving the patient's problems. Note: there is a prohibition throughout on romantic or sexual relations with the patient." But contradiction is a problem, right? So how do you solve it? One option: say that the transference is simply an obstacle and therefore there is a prohibition on romantic and sexual relations with the patient. The other option (Gallop?): say that the transference is no obstacle and essential, and because it is the perception of obstacle which justifies the prohibition, there is no prohibition.

In my jargon, the musical chairs model is a rational actor model of the history of ideas. A question arises within a field, there are a certain number of answers, not too many, 4 let us say. Each contributor addressing the question desires the reward from a novel contribution. The first contributor offers a first answer to get this, the second contributor offers a second answer, the third contributor offers a third answer, and the fourth contributor offers a fourth answer. Soon enough all the novel contributions have been made. I take people who ask a researcher, "Hasn't everything already been said on your topic?" to be relying on the model. The model can be applied across a variety of disciplines, but there are problems with applying it in some disciplines, such as medicine and psychoanalysis, to conclude that there is nothing new to say. Some contributions require illegal research, which has not been done or is not publicly available. With this in mind, I shall offer my own perspective on the dispute between philosopher Amia Srinivasan and Jane Gallop (which is perhaps connected to the fact that Srinivasan's PhD supervisor has a family member in Susan Isaacs and the enduring and bitter disputes between post-Freudian schools). Psychoanalytically-minded English literature professor Jane Gallop was brought to trial in 1992 for harassment of two graduate students but (merely) found guilty of violating her university's prohibition on consensual amorous relations between faculty and students. (You would expect Gallop to hire a lawyer AND the lawyer to provide a risk-averse defence, but Srinivasan quotes Gallop as defending herself on these lines: "You might as well prohibit teaching altogether, if you prohibit amorous relations, short of sex - kissing in a bar, etc.") In her formal defence, Gallop appeals to the transference relationship as essential or normal to successful teaching. Srinivasan accepts that according to Freud the patient-therapist relationship usually involves transference-love, a kind of love the patient feels for the analyst. She also accepts that transference-love is normal in teaching relationships; but she objects to Gallop’s defence with Freud's prohibition on patient-analyst romantic or sexual relationships. My response is perhaps not suitable for sharing. There is a small set of post-Freudian options to the transference paradox (given classical logic? see a later contribution of mine today) and one of them is to violate the prohibition; AND Gallop probably has incentives to take it: (a) because it is in the scientific and practical interests of American psychoanalysis that someone does; (ii) because psychoanalysts will treat her, as a literature professor, seriously now, because she knows about this option; (3) because she needs some advantage over the emerging readable European exponents of Lacan - Gallop was who (or whom) "we" used to read before we knew about them.

CHOLESTEROL?: Do you remember when Professor Joseph Stiglitz came to the University of Manchester? It was the early 21st century. Doctor Nadia Lisovskaya, then not a PhD holder, tried to explain to me about asymmetric information and its importance in understanding economics. Did I understand? Anyway, for a significant portion of the last decade the School of Social Sciences was consumed by a dispute over the economics curriculum. Students were concerned, amongst other things, about the dominance of economic models which are simple and elegant but fail to predict. I am wondering, what do these students think of the addition of models with asymmetric information and other measures to work with the standard axioms while increasing realism? Do they even address these? (I wrote a joke at the time, which I did not share with anyone, but an assistant psychiatrist says jokes should be shared. Economist: Prisoner's dilemma is used to understand an RNA virus. Protester1: What is an RNA virus? Protester2: What is Prisoner's Dilemma?) HEALTHY FOOD?: What is asymmetric information? Some economic models are said to assume perfect information whereas others are said to take into account asymmetric information. On Wikipedia, I read that there is no consensus on a definition though. I am tempted to think that the working economist uses the concept (roughly) like this. A simple model emerges in which all individuals represented within it share certain information. But reality is not like that and this is economically significant. More complex models involve addressing the same topic, in which only some of the agents have the information everyone has in the simple model. In this situation (and only in this one), one describes a model as involving asymmetric information. Take the invisible hand model. The government mostly does not direct people to jobs where needs are. Instead it leaves that to the market. A person needs to make a living. They locate a gap in the market and try to meet the demand there. Thereby they provide a product people need. This simple model assumes that individuals know where the gaps are: where there is demand but not yet supply. But reality is not always like this. Asymmetric successor models do not assume everyone's utilities are known - as economists represent utilities. What counts as asymmetric information elsewhere might be different; it depends on what is shared in the simple model. (By the way, Kathleen Stock in relation to social anthropology and Diane Abbott in relation to history perhaps don't know: the role we are looking for is by merit get rid of Foucault. Maybe even Boris Johnson doesn't, in relation to classics. "There is no point giving you a first class and deluding you about the job you would be competing for.")

What is possible worlds semantics? What is it all about? Where can I turn for help? Perhaps the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will help. I turned to its entry on Possible Worlds by Christopher Menzel this evening. It opens thus: "Anne is working at her desk. While she is directly aware only of her immediate situation — her being seated in front of her computer, the music playing in the background, the sound of her husband's voice on the phone in the next room, and so on — she is quite certain that this situation is only part of a series of increasingly more inclusive, albeit less immediate, situations: the situation in her house as a whole, the one in her neighborhood, the city she lives in, the state..." But this reminded me of certain unfortunate events in my life. From 2002 I had worked in the philosophy department of the University of Manchester and some years later I had a desk in the Arthur Lewis Building. These two married lecturers (one of whom was named Ann; yes, not Anne) got very involved with my desk, driving me off it, so that I could no longer use it. They had everything: lectureship jobs, an office, publications in distinguished journals, countless empty desks to take as their own, and yet they got involved with my desk, which was all I really had at the time (2011). It was actually the husband who was mostly involved, but I assume the wife was involved too. Almost anyone looking in would probably say: these people are racist. The department at the time was entirely white apart from me. (Do they not have understandable fears about developing this reputation? “No.”) I wondered: Is Menzel alluding to this? Is he conveying, “It is her desk actually”? He was at an institution in Munich when he wrote this and the couple have collaborators in Munich. Of course, he has free speech. But some free speech might be ill-advised. A Munich man getting involved in what will probably appear to many as a racist event. Is that a good idea? And some people will take one look at him and unfortunately conclude: this is the racist skilled craftsman type. Maybe he is trying to teach the people in Munich something: a minority is forcing his way into our distinguished club; don't commit genocide; release your racist impulses like this. But if I had their history, I would just go all the way with suppression, as some recovering alcoholics must avoid alcohol altogether. "If I have to kill something within myself, it is the racist homunculus me." Of course, with psychiatrists scutinizing me, perhaps I too should take care with my free speech, should not find allusions in Menzel. I should just comment on his work within normal professional bounds for analytic philosophy: don't find hidden meanings in the example, contrary to Judith Butler. This article is not useful enough for me. Look at how I teach modus ponens if you want some help. Can you not do CHILDREN’S LITERATURE? We are going for this new rule of the game: whereof one cannot do children literature, thereof one must be silent.

We philosophers, we freethinkers, we ascenders of heights, we must not, desirous of marking out our high culture, regard ourselves as beneath psychology. We treaters of ailments, we healers, we must befriend psychology’s medical sibling: psychiatry. The scientist of course is bound by a rule that distinguishes his herd: one must not utter nonsense. But who amongst the human can perpetually endure the bright daylight of sense: who can avoid nonsense altogether? But the psychiatrist, we can be sure, has an excuse for any nonsense he utters in the direction of his patient: ”I was just testing, testing for lucidity.” Upon being asked by a madman about what the contents inside the cell are, he includes the cell membrane. A lucidity test of course! Upon giving the madman bad advice on how to run his mad business - do not write on economics - he has his excuse ready: yet another lucidity test. Upon declaring a man mad merely because his house was cluttered, the psychiatrist is once again ready if charged with scientific crime: “who me, a responsible fellow testing for lucidity?”

In my experience, various postgraduate students and sometimes lecturers think about the history of ideas in a certain way. There is a question within a field and there are (or is) a certain number of answers worth considering, not very many, 4 let us say. Each contributor is interested in making a new contribution and pursues this goal rationally. So contributor number 1 offers one of these answers, contributor number 2 offers a second answer, number 3 offers a third answer, and number 4 a fourth answer. All the positions are soon taken. This is a simple rational actor model, like those used in economics. But does actual history correspond to the model? I shall focus on one case, in the field of logic, concerning the question of why not treat the inference to a conclusion as a premise. In this case, actual history is different. (NOTE: this is just the abstract; you need to download the PDF probably.)

“Is Professor Crispin Wright on Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis worth reading?” you ask. “What does it say? What is the main point? And what is Alex Miller’s response?” Beyond those who doubt the value of the tradition of analytic philosophy in general, there are probably American analytic philosophers with questions along these lines, who doubt the value of much British philosophy probably. In this paper, I offer a light substitute which bears some loose resemblance to Wright’s paper, for those wanting a quick feel of what Wright’s paper is like. I argue that Quine’s argument from above cannot succeed, given the kind of underdetermination to which he is committed. But his argument from below is less susceptible to being undermined by considerations of overall coherence than one might think.

In his original position thought experiment, John Rawls does not appear to allow for tailoring towards a specific temperament, including choosing principles on the basis of “What if I have that unfortunate temperament?” More specifically, he does not allow for choosing principles on the basis of “What if I want social interaction but alienate people easily?” But why then does he argue for the difference principle on the basis of “What if I am in the most unfortunate position economically?”? How can this asymmetry be defended?

I have been reading Timothy Williamson on legal evidence. And I have found a regress, I believe, an ancient regress even. He writes, "For brevity, I will use 'proposition' as a blanket term for whatever content is to be assessed against a body of evidence. Thus, we can ask how probable a proposition is on a given body of evidence." Take "Kelly is guilty": a proposition. About it one can ask, what is the evidence for it? But what is evidence? Williamson writes: "Not all propositions constitute evidence. It is standardly assumed that any proposition inconsistent with the evidence is false, which presumes that all evidence is true." So evidence consists of a true proposition or a set of true propositions. But then don't you get a problem along these lines? Prosecutor makes a statement of the form, "Accept proposition P1." P1 is a proposition, so what is the evidence? Prosecutor makes a statement of the form, "Evidence is true proposition P2." But that is a proposition and so one can ask, what is the evidence for it? Evidence is a proposition or set of propositions, so Prosecutor makes a statement of the form, "Evidence is true proposition P3." But that is a proposition and so one can ask, what is the evidence for it? And so on. (My title quotes a poem by Agnes Eva Savich, published by Under the Bashō. The relevant paper by Williamson is "The content of legal evidence.")

Professor Timothy Williamson has written a paper addressing the world of jurisprudence as well, entitled "The content of legal evidence." But what should he be saying to jurisprudence, which we can here understand as legal philosophy. Perhaps "saying" is the wrong word. We should speak of checking! He should check that his audiences have a reliable grasp of the premise-inference-conclusion distinction. Let's help any audience members who are not too sure. Here is an example of an argument, with two premises and an inference and a conclusion - prompted by words I actually heard. "(1) If my young children have been taken away to Pakistan without my consent, then my rights have been violated. (2) My young children have been taken away to Pakistan without my consent. Therefore: (3) My rights have been violated." (1) is a premise. (2) is also a premise. The statement above of it ends with "without my consent." The word "therefore" is an inference from these two premises. The conclusion is (3). Given these distinctions, the following representation of the argument is a mistake: "(1) If my young children have been taken away to Pakistan without my consent, then my rights have been violated. (2) My young children have been taken away to Pakistan without my consent. (3) Therefore, my rights have been violated." (3) is supposed to be the conclusion, but here it also includes the inference - the therefore! But this mistake is not uncommon in various circles (I have not been collecting published examples, sorry) and suggests to me a poor “grasp” of the distinctions between premises and inference and conclusion. Probably there is a paper in the nineteenth century regarding what disasters arise by not separating out the inference. But probably also you intuitively grasp the distinction, even if you are not disposed to write in line with it. If I ask you, what follows from premises (1) and (2), you will say (or at least think): my rights have been violated. If I ask you, what conclusion can you draw from premises (1) and (2) - assuming they are true - you will say (or at least think): my rights have been violated. If I ask you, what can you infer from premises (1) and (2) - assuming they are true - you will say (or at least think): my rights have been violated. In answering in this way, you don't include the inference in your answer: the answer being your specification of the conclusion. Including it is like saying "Therefore therefore..." If I draw attention to these two premises and say, "Therefore" you just think the conclusion as what follows. Hopefully! (The title I have given to this contribution quotes a poem by Laura Riding entitled "The World and I.")

Timothy Williamson's "The Content of Legal Evidence" seems to have been sparked by an idea: there must be cases like Frege's puzzle in the law. Frege's puzzle (in its standard version) involves statements of the form "a=a" and "a=b". Assume that the meaning of a name, or the contribution that a name makes to the meaning of a sentence, is determined solely by what it refers to. But then how can true statements of the latter form, involving two names, be more informative than statements of the former form, which are trivially true? For example (Frege's example), how can "Hesperus is Phosphorus" be more informative than "Hesperus is Hesperus"? The kind of case Williamson envisages in the law, or the hypothesized case that seems to especially awaken his interest, involves this: some evidence is submitted to a court, later some evidence is submitted which the court takes to be new evidence, but it is actually the same evidence; it is just that another name has been used when presenting the supposedly new evidence and the relationship of identity (i.e. the two names refer to the same entity) is not known. I shall not go into the precise relationship between this envisaged case and Frege's puzzle. Does Williamson present actual legal cases? He draws upon Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde to construct a fictional case. I have asked a (University of Cambridge educated) lawyer, but she does not know of any case that fits Williamson's conception. But probably there are actual cases. I have a worry about "where" cases are most likely to be found. They involve dodgy courts (e.g. kangaroo courts). And these courts do not have aims for which Williamson's recommendations are relevant, if any courts do. This seems to be a fundamental assumption of Williamson: the aim of a law court is best achieved by not treating a submission of the same evidence again as if it were new evidence. Or else this is: the aim of a law court is best achieved by not treating a submission of the same evidence again as if it were new evidence, if it is in a position to know this. I predict that the kind of case Williamson is interested in is most easy to find where this assumption is a doubtful one: does this court actually have such an aim?

Legal positivism is a philosophy of law which was first fully elaborated by the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (Adams and Green 2019). The leading twentieth century legal positivists are the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen and the University of Oxford philosophers of law H.L.A. Hart and Joseph Raz. In this essay, I shall first identify two essential theses of legal positivism. I shall then argue against one of the theses that defines legal positivism, the separation thesis. I do so by appealing to general philosophy of language, namely Donald Davidson’s ideas about interpretation. I consider an objection that one cannot just apply such general considerations to law, but I reject it. I conclude that legal positivism is not an acceptable philosophy, because of this Davidsonian argument against a thesis that is essential to it.

A paper by Professor Timothy Williamson, no less, has appeared in the new manuscripts section. It is (I think) officially about when we are dealing with a new piece of legal evidence, as opposed to a familiar piece re-presented. Some background information may be helpful for understanding his paper, which Williamson strangely does not provide to his legal-specialist readers. Let's start with propositions. You are walking with someone and they say, "You are tired." You disagree. You are not tired. What do you say? "No." Or "No, I don't agree with you." Or "I don't agree with you." Or "No, I don't agree with what you said." This last one is interesting. Suppose you say those words and the speaker switches to French. They say, "Tu es fatigué." Assume this is a perfect translation of their previous assertion. You might say, "I don't agree with what you said and you are just saying the same thing in French." There is this thing, what-the-speaker-said, and one can switch languages while what-the-speaker-said remains the same, when there is perfect translation. We call this thing the proposition asserted. So if you were in very formal philosophical mode, you could have said, "I don't agree with this proposition you asserted and you are just asserting the same proposition in French." But what is a proposition? A sentence is something more concrete. It is in a particular language (usually), such as English or French or German. A proposition is more abstract. One can assert the same proposition in different languages (it seems). What about evidence? Evidence is evidence for or against a proposition. But is evidence itself a proposition? Not always, given how we ordinarily speak. Consider for example (a hypothetical example I hope): the blood on your shirt is evidence that someone has been wounded. The blood is evidence. The blood is not some strange abstract thing. It is something concrete, very concrete. But Williamson takes evidence to be something propositional. Why? I am not sure, but probably he is influenced by an old argument, that goes back to Hegelians if not Hegel himself, and is known in analytic philosophy through Wilfrid Sellars and then Donald Davidson, or slight variations on it are. Only a proposition or set of propositions can stand in a relation of support for a proposition. The conclusion is a proposition, for example someone has been wounded. If evidence supports it, then evidence must also be a proposition or set of propositions or have propositional content, as beliefs do. (Try explaining why you accept a proposition and what you present are other propositions and inferences to your accepted conclusion from them, these other propositions being premises.) The argument is used by Sellars and Davidson to deny the evidential role of sensory experience. Sensory experience is not propositional, they say, so it cannot be evidence (or Davidson usually understood says this anyway). Williamson himself disagrees. But how can you understand Williamson without this background knowledge of previous debates in philosophy (general epistemology, not legal philosophy, which does not receive news soon)? My contribution title quotes a poem by Laura Riding entitled In Due Form.