Terence Rajivan Edward

We tend to divide the British newspapers into left-wing and right-wing, or Labour and Tory. The famous left-wing newspapers are The Daily Mirror and The Guardian (which briefly employed a school friend of mine - you mistreated him I bet and he left; I know the rules of Britain and now I am going to mistreat you; because I am a good man I will warn you now: this is going to be painful for you). The famous right-wing newspapers are The TImes, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, and The Daily Telegraph, sometimes called The Torygraph - I am a fan though. There is also The Independent, which I dislike somewhat, and The Daily Star, which I really like, and The Daily Sport, which I once bought. (Sorry if I missed any newspaper out, the Sunday counterparts, etc.) But I am not convinced by this political division. Philosopher Kathleen Stock is a favourite with The Guardian, and she is right-wing if anyone is. (She would go left-wing if she felt duty requires this? My station and its duties.) Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins is a favourite of The Daily Telegraph, despite being famously liberal. I would say Jenkins is cleverer than Stock. What I propose is that it is a streaming system: streaming is something you normally do in school, if you do it at all, by putting students of comparable ability in the same class - it is not for adults I used to assume. The Guardian go with intellectuals of their ability, regardless of the intellectual's political preference. The Daily Telegraph go with intellectuals of their higher ability, again regardless of the intellectual's political preference. And there is no newspaper for me yet! ("No, it is Telegraph for you." Note: my title misquotes a song by Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan.)

One of the things that I am struck by in analytic political philosophy is published premise-by-premise reconstructions which are flawed, sometimes severely flawed. Analytic philosophy is renowned for expertise in logic, so I wonder how these get published. There is other stuff that surprises me, or at least makes me wonder, which is similar. I was responding to a paper by Professor Miriam Ronzoni on the basic structure of society, entitled “Two Concepts of the Basic Structure, and their Relevance to Global Justice.” In it, she specifies four propositions and identifies an ambiguity in the third one, or tries to. I was trying to imagine her point of view. I imagined that when she submitted this paper, she thought, "This part with the four propositions is really analytic. They will love that." And when she got published, she believed that this thought was verified. I felt sorry for her and felt it was good of me to point out how various competent analytical philosophers would regard it, in a series of nitpicking contributions on PhilPapers. But then I thought, "Don't people have a reasonable knowledge of what they can and cannot do well by the age at which she submitted." (I remember N - Dr. Nadia Lisovskaya - was trying to make a gift for someone and I suggested to her that she draw something as a gift and she said, "No, I can't do that with my artistic skills," so I tried to come up with another gift idea.) "How do they get in with these weaknesses?" I often wonder about (various) analytic political philosophers. But if they know their weaknesses, I ALSO wonder why do they try to do this? (In the case of Ronzoni, I suppose she can improve: her errors seem not that bad.) I would not try to become a professional juggler, because I just don't have the skill (I think). What motivates her and others (Professor Jonathan Quong, Professor Anca Gheaus, Dr. Richard Child, and many others)? Maybe they think that their errors are harmless in philosophy and they would not, for example, become a builder if they had analogous problems with that craft. But I am not sure though, because of what I experienced in 2023. In September 2023 - September 6th was it? 6/11! - I was forced into hospital with a mental disorder, pretending to be French feminist Simone de Beauvoir. I was moved to North Manchester General Hospital and I met a consultant psychiatrist, Dr. Swan he is called for short. When I first met him, I wondered whether he is a proper doctor and I asked him what is inside the cell. He made an error in his list (to the best of my knowledge): he said that the cell membrane is inside the cell. He is a consultant psychiatrist and he is trying to tamper with my brain and he does not know ABCs of cell biology! ( Cell biology is different from building, of course, but if this kind of error turns up not just in philosophy, but also in such psychiatry, why not in building too? My current psychiatrist, whom I am meeting on Tuesday, seems really clever. But I am wondering whether there is just a book somewhere which tells you something of this form: doing X is how you seem really clever to members of the working class, doing Y is how you seem really clever to the middle class, doing Z is how you seem really clever to the aristocracy. I recall that the comedian Milton Jones has a joke mocking pick-up-artists, pick-up artists being people who apply reliable formulas for seducing women, despite not being rich, romantic, or good-looking [this “or” is different from mutually exclusive “or,” by the way]. But I don't mock them specifically because I believe many people are doing something analogous to pick-up artists: “This is our formula for getting a lectureship job at the University of Manchester despite not being able to do various things Terence would expect.” Note: my title quotes a song by Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan, which I regard as perhaps misleading, the song lyrics that is. All the roads that the man walks down are very similar, I suspect.)

You are an ambitious university and you have lecturers all at 6/10 level (6/10 means “6 out of 10”). Then you get a new generation of lecturers at 7/10 level. When they are old, a new generation comes in at 8/10 level. You now have some 8/10 and some 7/10. But the problem is this: the rules by which 7/10 work don't make sense to 8/10, but they do to 9/10. 7/10 and 8/10 are not compatible. For example (I can't think of a better one), 7/10 think that when you are writing you should not keep using the same word: use a synonym. 8/10 think: use the same word; this variation is very vulgar. But 9/10 think: it is good for foreign speakers, they can improve their vocabulary. (Observe the success of J.K. Rowling.) Once you get all 8/10 you have a problem. They don't get along with 9, so 9 don't go there, and you are NEVER going to see 10/10, whom they do get along with. (Also when 8/10 don't get along with someone, they don't do what 7/10 do: instead they become very aggressive!) Dear Beloved University of Manchester: just get rid of 8, go back to 7, and wait for 9! (Also the rating system is a simplification. 8/10 academically to get to 8 reduces his social intelligence and has a parent figure supply that. "Hey, that can be me: old 7/10." Addition to the Pied Piper of Hamlyn: you don't need to pay the Pied Piper because if the rats come back we can surely do his role, said this combination 7 and 8.)

If you are a very casual observer of rap music (Kimberley Brownlee???), you probably have this impression: it is all black people and one white boy-man. Assume this impression. What is this one white boy-man doing there and outshining everyone else? Should not Eminem - the one white man in case the perspective of history is very different - think this: it's a black man's industry and I will give them their space? But maybe that is a bad idea: "If no one challenges them, everyone will think they only dominate because of sympathy with what back people have been through: give them their space." But let's compare rap with professional philosophy (if we can maintain coherence)! A casual impression: it's all white men and Carrie Jenkins. Here is a sensible response (Joel Smith's view last year???): "It is obvious that black people, brown people, yellow people, and red people can do this as well. We don’t need someone to challenge us to show this (and an analogous situation obtains in rap music - no need for Eminem to show that a white man can rap well too; just give them their space). Arguments and distinctions: it is not so different from law. There are good black lawyers, good brown lawyers, good yellow lawyers, good red lawyers. Philosophy appears to be open to someone with sufficient talent who tries but it is blatantly not. And only a fool would keep trying to get in." Here is another response (Ann Whittle's view???): "It appears that others can do this, but it has been cleverly set up so that they cannot or would not. Who is going to spend all their time making these distinctions on these topics? As soon as they realize the demands involved, they go and do something else, for example they build a big system. As soon as Professor Miriam Ronzoni realizes the demands of analytic philosophy actually, she gives up promoting Rawls and builds an emotionally-appealing system." This is a response of mine: this network can surely find a minority who achieves what I did in publications and with the philosophical-poetic system too, but they would just leave if they experienced the kind of deterring behaviour I have. (Zsuzsanna Chappell: "My husband is rich; I don't need to do this" Other quotes from Dr. Chappell: "No, you can't do it like this. I have done a course at the LSE." Note: my song title quotes Bob Dylan. How close to Eminem can Carrie Jenkins get? "VERY CLOSE.")

Why study a science subject over an arts subject, at university say? Answer 1: "I want a job: what jobs are there in the arts? Hardly any!" ANSWER 2: "In science you can prove you are good. There are tests of facts and of mathematical ability. In arts it is all subjective: just opinion. The people who get in are probably only those from 'the right' social class." This second answer I have heard on numerous occasions, by people with very different wealth levels and even country backgrounds. (“Why do you say ‘The second answer I have heard’ and instead of ‘I have heard the second answer…’ ”? The Sisters Brontë!!! It’s still Charlotte dominating Google search, 8.53am, "bronte" as search string.) Okay, let's switch to business for a while and then evaluate answer 2. You run a successful family business, quite a big one, the business that is. You produce some children, some of whom are stupid. What are you going to do with your stupid ones? "I might let them run a small department, where even if they make bad decisions it won't be a big problem." Now it was probably in a history of anthropology book: I recall reading that the scientists in England in the late 19th century mostly came from 130 or so families. These families probably even set up some universities or departments. What do they do with their stupid children? ("Send them to you"?) Here is a proposal: they put them in charge of a department. By the way, at the University of Manchester an economist once told me that because of the mathematics, economists with very different political preferences can agree (or "agree that given certain premises, the conclusions follow," I am tempted to add). But another economist (or economics student) told me in shock: "A referee said that the maths on a submitted paper was wrong - the maths!" Did you ever think: these well-established families would start cheating you on the mathematics to ensure that it is largely their people in the science "business"? Are you but a tutor for the Sidgwick family as well?! “Maybe but I don’t write about my experiences in public because…” (Note: my title quotes Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan. Note also: I imagine someone one day in the future writes similar responses to mine and puts them online. He doesn't know where my responses are, and I don't know where a previous person's similar responses are, and so forth.)

I associate the words "Shut up and calculate" with a famous loudmouth physicist, but who said it first? I don't know. Much the same advice can be given across fields: go to work, focus on your professional area, don't offer opinions on this, that and the other. Is this good advice? There are several reasons why it might not be, or might not be for you. Here are some, not in order of importance. (A) You are interested in what happens if you break the taboo. (B) The common opinions of people in a social class (or caste or social rank) above yours may well be of interest. Take your opinion that the best approach to work is to hide your emotions, do your work well, and go home: a widespread opinion in this society I live in. This approach solves problems of how to work for an authority whose decisions you disagree with, as you sometimes probably will, and how to relate in a civil way with colleagues, especially given intense divides over some topics, such as politics and religion. (Question for Rawlsians: how do you achieve your end of diverse people living together without an approach such as this, which does not much use the right to freedom of speech?) I suppose a social class above yours centuries ago worked out that about 1 in 4 people can read your facial expressions of approval and disapproval anyway and worked out solutions to your problems. The common opinions of this class are of interest to you. (“We don’t do stoic stiff upper lip really.”) (C) The sharing of opinions leads to interesting puzzles. For example, regarding the philosophy profession, how do these people get so good at philosophy and still say that? I would have to be on drugs to say that! "Even at the time, many philosophers found his solution unconvincing," Timothy Williamson writes, in his introduction Philosophical Method (p.1). EVEN? I think the best objections to some figures appear when they are alive; afterwards hardly anyone is going to read this stuff - the buzz around them will disappear and other figures of comparable stature will be carefully read. And it is difficult to anticipate reception in future generations. (By the way, a friend of mine, probably noticing my ego as a teenager, told me: there must be very clever British people elsewhere. If a social class above shared some of my ends, they probably don't try to achieve them like I would. "We don't get a person cleverer than this to write essays for the common man: it is known to cause disgust. They'll return to their Orwell. Is there any sensible end for which we need this clever???" They have a different list of sensible ends also.) (D) Some people are basically conversational philosophers with an academic dressing of references and you can provide better conversation maybe. "Hey liberal dudes, aren't people social beings, dudes? Prisoners don't like solitary confinement." I am taking this prisoners reference from memory of Kimberley Brownlee in the Philosophical Quarterly. I haven't been to prison, but in psychiatric hospital there were periods in which I just stayed in my little dormitory space, because of very aggressive patients. I have seen patients fight with each other. (My title quotes Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan.)

I sometimes mock brief memorable philosophy, such as Derrida's paradox that forgiveness forgives the unforgiveable, by showing that on closer inspection this emotionally powerful stuff is misleading or just false. This is probably in line with my training in analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophers are not swayed by this thrilling stuff (or thrilling for many): they examine philosophical claims carefully, for example finding the initial formulation insufficiently clear and examining several revised formulations. (This goes back to before analytic philosophy really, with Henry Sidgwick and probably even before him.) But is such analytic philosophy always a good idea? I was in hospital for an extended period of time in September 2023 and I tried to do analytic philosophy there, without a pen and paper and no smartphone or computer either. (I escaped about three weeks later, was brought back after a week, and was given my laptop at some point. I am focusing on the period in hospital without laptop. I didn't have a smartphone back then.) I came up with a complicated solution to the surprise exam paradox. I don't remember it now! Of course, I remember the surprise exam paradox - it is thrilling stuff. What I don't remember is my complicated and no doubt novel solution. I suspect analytic philosophy is just not designed for people who end up in certain situations, in prison for example. If you are ever there, come up with immediately exciting stuff for the common man and woman, like true forgiveness forgives the unforgivable (or metaphor cannot be defined non-metaphorically). (Have you seen those videos with Donald Davidson? I was thinking to make a fake one. DAVIDSON-: "Conceptual relativism is a heady and exotic doctrine, or would be if we could make good sense of it. The trouble is, as so often in philosophy, it is hard to improve intelligibility while retaining the excitement." (1973-4: 5) ME (laughing): You haven't thought this advice through carefully, paradoxically. Anyway, I am probably a guest here amongst old families in the business. How am I doing? DAVIDSON-: Do you know whom the previous guest was?)

In 2022, I read comedian Robert Webb's novel Come Again. In September 2023, I was admitted to hospital with a mental health disorder, as I often say on here, these days. Early on in my time in hospital, I made a remark to the nurses about it, Webb’s novel that is. I gave away many books after being finally discharged, including Webb's novel. But I would like to share with you from memory what I said to the nurses. After midway in this novel, Webb describes the best kind of kiss. I am not sure how he arrived at this description. Anyway, my remark had two components to it. (i) The best kind of kiss just depends on what you want. (ii) I think most people who kiss for erotic reasons do not want to get stuck with kissing - they want to move on to other stuff; so the best kind of kiss is basically one that moves you onto that other stuff! If the kiss is as good as Webb describes, or reaches the maximum level of sensory pleasure from kissing, maybe you never will move on! “I like this; let’s not do that.” “But I WANT to do that.” (I am impressed by Webb's novel but if I ever converse with him, I suspect I will regard him as even more stupid than he regards me: much more stupid probably and no doubt much worse at comedy too.)

Jacques Derrida famously says that forgiveness forgives the unforgivable. Can we solve this paradox? I shall propose a solution, drawing upon his contrast between the Aristotelian and the Christian. The Aristotelian thinks that a virtue is usually between two extremes. Between the miser and the spendthrift, for example, is a man who has the virtue of spending money appropriately: he does not cling onto it too much but he does not overspend either. ("Does he support blogs? Maybe he will support you." Very funny... NOT!) Similarly, one might think that between the unforgiving man and the man who foolishly forgives too much is the virtuous man, who forgives when appropriate but does not forgive excessive wrongdoing: the unforgivable - that which should not be forgiven. But the Christian rejects this approach, saying forgive all. The Christian instructs that we forgive what the Aristotelian calls unforgivable There is nothing inconsistent about this instruction. A memorable way of putting this point is that forgiveness forgives the unforgivable, but I propose we understand it more fully as a Christian saying: “Forgiveness forgives what the Aristotelian (WHOSE ETHICS I REJECT) calls unforgivable.” (Note that there is a distinction between using the word "unforgivable" to mean that which should not be forgiven and using it to mean that which cannot be forgiven. The word is associated with two concepts. It is ambiguous. But its normal use in English involves only the first concept I think, interpreting charitably, e.g. "What he did is unforgivable." By the way, I am wondering whether there are all these subcategories for Derrida on PhilPapers as a joke or as a warning: "This philosopher is better than most of you think." Or "This seemingly bitter dispute between Derrida and analytic philosophy is not what you think"? Or "It just looks prettier with these"? Or "We just make as we suspect you would." PSYCHIATRIST: hey, what is going on here? EMINEM: You only get one shot. KRISTEVA: Guess who's back, back again...)

Murder as depicted in films/movies/the cinema typically involves this: a person struggles against a killer and is then killed. I am thinking of a murder scene involving two individuals, a killer and a victim. The victim runs away but is caught, or the victim struggles against the grip of the murderer but is killed. No doubt you have seen dozens of American films with scenes like this. But how realistic are they? I have a rival conception of what goes on, which also challenges various films which do not have murder scenes which fit this description, e.g. Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. (I should probably work on a precise definition of the film scenes challenged, but I will not do so now, because I am so eager to share my rival conception. Have you ever experienced such eagerness? “I am not disposed to form such conceptions, but I know people who are”???) The killer and the victim are walking together and they enter his apartment. They are conversing pleasantly but he disagrees with a point that she makes. She asks, "Would you like me to kill myself?" He says, "Would you prefer to live?" She says, "I do but if you want me to kill myself I can." He says, "Don't worry I will do it." He begins to strangle her. She asks, "Can you press a little harder?" Eventually he kills her. (The part of my title before the colon - is there a name for this? - quotes a line from Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan's song Mr. Tambourine Man. The "dozens" sentence is an echo of Milan Kundera, from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. A Russian speaker once asked me whether adding Mister is generally funny in English, because she does not find it funny. Adding Mister to Tambourine Man does not appear to produce a humorous effect. MRS. GASKELL: Don’t be late for work today, okay. ME: What I am trying to say is the cinema is technically good, but it doesn't have ideas. I have ideas. MRS. GASKELL: Whatever!)

In 2011-12, I was involved in a dispute over the exclusion of material from before John Rawls's 1971 book A Theory of Justice on a political theory course - basically a political philosophy course examining theories of social justice. I supported the inclusion of such material. In retrospect (2015), I was more accepting of this exclusion, as I understood it to work. "Sure we won't include old important figure X because he does not meet current standards of clarity and argument precision. But if a philosopher today wants to reformulate his position to these standards, then that philosopher can be included, like G.A. Cohen did for Marx." But there is a problem with my understanding. (Multiple problems if you examine current standards properly.) I taught a course in political theory in which Cohen was cut from the essential reading and replaced with a hardly known figure of little influence (an Asian: I wonder whether I was expected to be more accepting as a consequence) and Raz was cut as essential reading and replaced with Steven Wall, in liberal perfectionism week. Given the cuts (by the course convener), there is no reason to think that the exclusion is working as I imagined, where an impressive modern reformulation gets you in. (In the case of Raz, I have heard he is considered unsuitable for students, but students just differ in their tastes. Some students prefer Bernard Williams to Rawls, some prefer Raz, many enjoy Nozick. In ethics, students write on Raz.) Anyway, the colleagues on the course were generally of the opinion that Rawls is somehow forever and great; but they (or some of them) also make remarks like "If you want to learn that old stuff, go to the history department." It is a puzzling combination: who is going to preserve Rawls when he too is old? (He's dead, but I mean old as...) By the way, Bernard Williams' second wife is a historian and Amartya Sen married a historian. Could the secret to surpassing Rawls be as simple as marry a historian? "But the historian will die." In the 19th century, British scientists came from about 100 families I recall reading, or was it 130? What about historians? Who is Skinner and who is Rothschild? (I anticipate someone's saying, "Rawls loved his wife. How can he be expected to just marry a historian academic?" (A) He doesn't listen to her when she is upset. (Even the famous misogynist Milan Kundera would not advise this.) (B) The middle class marry for love, don't they? Rawls, with his grand system, is presumably above that class. One marries for alliance, I suppose, unless one be a romantic poet. (C) The claim that Rawls is a great philosopher is already weird given that he married but then he ALSO assumes every person wants as much wealth as possible.) My title quotes a line from Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan.

I am surprised sometimes by the conversation that professional philosophers make, but perhaps my own conversation is much worse - certainly by their standards! ("Can anyone else in the world show off this much?") Back in 2002 or so, a philosopher (or philosophy lecturer, now professor) told me, "Bernard Williams used to write good philosophy. I don't know what he's writing now." The philosopher presumably thinks Williams is cleverer than himself and has a better network of people to discuss his new path with and get feedback over. But the philosopher does not appear to contemplate the following thought: his rather conventional assessment system is where the problem lies. (“These philosophers are interested in your character development, true, but if you do take an interest in theirs, they will become very nervous and won’t be able to do anything.” Interesting.) Similarly, our new lecturers say that Joseph Raz and another fellow write too much - could the problem instead be with our tradition of a few lovably crafted works, at least in relation to Raz, as I have elsewhere argued? Anyway, I was talking to a political philosopher (around 2010) and he said, "Anthropology: isn't that just taking notes?" This question might just have been a provocation: you know how most political philosophers talk. It feels to me like a substitute for pushing you. Not sure if it is a provocation though. (Maybe it is a reasonable question. Thanks!) Anyway, does this political philosopher never have this experience: I thought pursuing goal X could be done this way, as just about anyone would, but actually it cannot be? In his best known response to Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe tells us about how travellers can be astonishingly blinkered and uses Marco Polo as an example: Polo's little book does not report the invention of printing in China, which arrived in Europe with Gutenberg 100 years later, or the great wall. This demand for a description of a society which captures all the important stuff - the description that is! - is, I think, only something aristocrats can do at present. The demand is difficult to meet. If you sent a professional anthropologist of the functionalist past back in time, they will be/would be fixated on social structure - maybe even the question are the Chinese more hierarchical than we are? (NO. Is that even possible? "YES.") If you could somehow send Dame Marilyn Strathern, she will focus on a large scale conceptual contrast: e.g. do these people believe in individuals with unique characters, as we do, or do they believe that this person and that have the same character, and if so why? These anthropologists narrow the focus and exhibit a kind of muscularity there, I suppose, at the expense of risking massive oversights. (By the way, I would say that Strathern's idea, loosely interpreted, of doing a Kuhnian study of how new reproductive technologies lead to transformations in folk fundamental concepts and assumptions is clever. "What are we going to say about these technologies and kinship, our chief concern?" I doubt the inquiring political philosopher will have much in the way of ideas. Believe it or not, there are other clever people apart from John Rawls and some economists and Newton. "John who, mate?")

The term "intertextuality" is a piece of jargon from literary criticism (1980s and beyond?). I am not sure what it means exactly, but critics get very involved in examining the relationship of a text to other texts. The most obvious way is by examining how a text refers (or alludes) to another text. I was wondering whether Elizabeth Gaskell's "My French Master" alludes to the Brontë sisters' time writing French-language essays for Belgian Constantin Heger. (They say the Brontë sisters were poor. Do the Victorian poor go to Brussels? "They are not poor by your standards." By the way, when I put in "Bronte" as the search string at 10.40 something am 24th June Google, Charlotte Brontë only comes up. Her name in big bold and a big picture, birth date and death - o yes there is a little blue box which says "Brontë sisters" and another one.) Now normally our exploration of references and allusions is based on what we regard as psychologically plausible: Brontë and Gaskell visited each other, exchanged letters, so allusion is plausible. Now let's consider logical positivism/deconstruction. According to deconstruction, you have to be very careful with psychological claims, because you cannot verify them - avoid them probably. But how do you combine intertextuality with this avoidance? Here is a proposal: open yourself up to all sorts of other texts as shedding light on the text being examined, e.g. My French Master, without assessing which connections are more likely to be intended. (For the relationship between deconstruction and logical positivism, see John Searle The Word Turned Upside Down, and Professor John Hawthorne's contribution to Metametaphsics. My title: see Nobel prize-winner Bob Dylan.)

What is our relationship to epochs past, for example to the Elizabethan age, the Victorian Age, the Edwardians? ("Our relationship? As if there is a single relationship. We have all kinds of relationships." Just answer the question, or you’ll never get into All Souls COLLEGE, and use some other word instead of "ages"- the singular has already been used! "The question is not adequately formulated and I reject this vulgar stylistic rule to use synonym after synonym." Please answer it and help the foreign reader expand their vocabulary. "We exist temporally after these periods." Which of you Sidwicky faux-brats said that? Chalky Flora from 1961 The Innocents?) One answer, which derives probably from unspeakable German historico-philosophy, is that people in previous eras made certain controversial assumptions without even realizing them, but because we find them controversial we notice them, such as the Victorian assumption that it is a good idea to go on a worldwide civilizing mission. But reflecting on my earlier contribution, entitled "The relationship between the Brontë sisters as one of analysis: a remark," I have realized another answer. (“Do betoken it then.”) In her mock-quaintly titled "The Sister Brontë," Margaret Oliphant writes, "The curious circumstance that Charlotte Brontë was, if the word may be so used, doubled by her sisters..." In my contribution I proposed that the word she is looking for is something else, specifying an alternative word. This point was available for making in Oliphant’s time, but you might well think that a person of my temperament back then (???) is unlikely to realize it; I am dependent on a whole tradition of discussing paradoxes with the alternative word, etc., to realize it. From this thought, we arrive at my new realization: if we think of previous times as composed of games, metaphorically speaking, which we too can play, like the game of being a Victorian literary critic, when we DO play them we are even better at them - relying on the very same common assumptions of that time; none of these rejected. That is how we have progressed! To illustrate this other relationship further: in a different contribution, here on PhilPapers database, I said that something high-profile essayist Maria Popova did was very clever. I believe there are various people who will get intensely involved with this judgment (everyone with a Cambridge Uni degree???): "Is it actually clever, to what extent did she have similar previous examples as inspiration, and even if it is clever is she too proud of this?" What do I care if she is PROUD or not? "We must engage in the Victorian game of character development, which we are even better at now." (Note: part of my title today is a line from Nobel prize-winner Bob Dylan's semi-essentializing song "Just like a woman." PROUD - see Milan Kundera on Lermontov. A hint of uncensored Jerry Fodor perhaps, in this text of mine. Charlotte Brontë was a governess to the Sidgwick family. Etc.?)

Joseph Priestley was an impressive scientist, who also wrote a book largely neglected today entitled An Essay on the First Principles of Government (second edition, 1771). In the second section, he makes an argument that appeals to the public good over generations. Then he says, "I own it is rather matter of surprise to me, that this great object of all government should have been so little insisted on by our great writers who have treated of this subject, and that more use hath not been made of it." I interpret him as asking, why don't they pay attention to this? I find Priestley amusing here: he is as puzzled by the white man's civilization, with its emphasis on the individual, as any foreigner! (Part of my title comes from lyrics by the rapper Eminem - his best lines?: "Never seen a white person before, jaws all on the floor." The vast majority of white people have never met the white man proper, I sometimes wonder.) What should we say to Priestley's question? What do you think? ("You're asking me? I didn't get in by being able to answer such questions. I'm best thought of as a Daily Mail reader with high culture references"???) Not sure what the answer is, but various possible responses. Here are four. (A) The great writers on government: their souls are just made of different stuff. It is not that they have much the same desires as so-and-so but more talent. (They don't marry in the age of marriage, as we all notice, etc. A lot of the philosophers I have taught for are married, in contrast. The Coco-Nutters of Bacup only admit married men, because they can be trusted to learn the complicated steps - see Jeanette Edwards' Born and Bred.) (B) At the core of liberalism is a different choice. If you give one of these writers a choice between saving this man and that, they choose that man. And that man is not concerned about the public good. And their arguments address him. (C) Sometimes the intellectual elite in a society, if you can bear up the term "Intellectual elite," decide to pursue some other path to normal, as the best way to achieve. For example, "everyone" loves these well-crafted well-proportioned tragedies featuring legendary characters, but the Englishman decides to pursue irregularity and make it the core of his literary art. If he chose the normal path, his literature is sure to come second or below. George Eliot at best. (D) The philosophers who make commonsensical points and pose commonsensical questions don't ask this sensible question that Priestley does, so they have perhaps learnt not to look too closely at the core system of Western culture (or British culture), as one might metaphorically describe it!

Marx thought that new technologies transform culture, or Marx on one reading did: the driver of revolution is technology, not class struggle. How shall we study the effect of the Internet on philosophy? Shall we take an individual and look into how it affects them? I wrote two online letters to two philosophy lecturers I have worked for and my care coordinator suggested that these are not a good idea, the letters that is. I am not entirely sure why. Furthermore, even if the letters are somehow annoying (are they?), these people are annoying for me in turn. Go, try and change them! "We have an ability to detect people of the following kind: in any conflict of interest between you and them, you must sacrifice your interests"???? Okay, I shall focus on a third of these 'gods': an expert on free will, determinism, and causation, whom I have also worked for. (A) SAME JOURNALS. Before the Internet and even up to somewhere in the 2000s probably, you went to the university library and you browsed the journals available there, or I did and I presume this person too. “Yes, I saw you there”? I believe this person accesses journals online today, which is a convenience for them. But with the Internet you can find lots of journals which are not in our university library and try to publish there. I doubt I could publish otherwise, because the library-stocked journals do not appear to work by the rules I once assumed them to work by. (A favourite theme of mine: how did that flawed rational reconstruction get into the journal run by logic experts? Etc.) I think this person more or less publishes in the journals they would have published in anyway, without the Internet - with a few publication exceptions, the exceptions being in journals very like the library-stocked ones. (B) SAME AUDIENCE. The Internet potentially gives you much larger audiences. I believe this person writes for much the same audience they would have in the nearest possible world without Internet (or widespread Internet use, to be precise). (C) SAME ATTENTION-SPAN REQUIRED. It is a common impression that the Internet has lots of low-attention span browsers, and even causes reduced attention span. I joined a stand-up comedian community and I believe many comedians try to adapt a bit to such browsers. But who adapts to them in philosophy? In philosophy, I sometimes write short summaries which adapt to them, such as all the criticisms I am aware of regarding Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science. I don't think this person adapts at all. They do have some quickly accessible rational reconstructions and the like in papers, but I doubt these are there for browsers and their articles are hard-going I find. In analytic philosophy more generally, you might have sensibly predicted a flowering of journals featuring only short papers in the age of the Internet, but to my knowledge there are only two, one being newer. (D) NO SUMMARIES. Also, as suggested earlier, if sufficiently skilled, you can upload summaries instead of just papers and people will be interested. This person does not do that. ("The Internet will kill the printed textbook." Why?) (E) TOP-DOWN INCENTIVES NEEDED. I propose that the Internet technology mainly improves convenience for this person in accessing journals and manuscripts (e.g. through PhilPapers) and learning relevant news in the discipline (through Leiter Blogs and Daily Nous and e-mail). Any of the dramatic cultural changes in how you do philosophy and how you write it that you would expect with the new technology and its spread would require top-down incentives: e.g. a way of measuring the impact of releasing lecturer notes online is introduced and the university uses this measure - this person and others then release lecture notes. (F) REPRESENTATIVE. I don’t think this person is unusual. The points above apply to most or all the professional analytic philosophers I have worked for, regardless of seeming variations in sex, temperament, voting preferences, etc. (This marvellous new thing the Internet is not an adventure for them.)

Anthropologists are often pictured as going to exotic tribes and reporting the way of life there, but since the 1980s there has been a steady expansion of anthropology at home. I shall focus on British anthropologists doing fieldwork in Britain. A criticism I have about this fieldwork is this: one of the biggest changes in the lives of many British citizens is the introduction of personal computers and then the Internet, but anthropologists have told us little about how these changes have been received. Where is the discussion of computers in Nigel Rapport's Diverse Worldviews in an English Village, or Jeanette Edwards' Born and Bred? You cannot underestimate the impact of computers on my life in the periods in which they did fieldwork. And from listening to the kind of people anthropologists study (I assume - "No, we anthropologists don't just study any commoners!"?), I hear remarks about impact, such as criticisms of playing on the computer all day and the deterioration of community/social-oriented behaviour. Anthropologists do talk about the impact of technology, especially new reproductive technologies and how they “affect” folk kinship concepts and assumptions. One very plausible explanation for why computers and the Internet have been neglected is because kinship studies is regarded as central to the discipline and the computer stuff is not important for kinship studies. Kinship is to anthropology as logic is to philosophy, it is sometimes said. In the 1980s and early 90s, it was unclear to British anthropologists what the impact of computers was on kinship. Regarding the Internet, one can discuss Internet dating and marriage, but it does not seem that deeply-embedded folk concepts and assumptions regarding kinship are being challenged by the new technologies and what they allow for. It is not like with new reproductive technologies: "The good old concept of mother: what we need instead is this concept of this type of mother, that concept of that type of mother." There is nothing evidently like that. A worry after accepting this explanation is that the anthropologist at home only "wakes up" when they have the impression of valuable material for their discipline, given its SPECIFIC traditions (e.g. kinship focus, dramatic conceptual contrasts). A related worry is that their impression of what is going to be of value is largely established before fieldwork. (“I am going to ask about kinship and new reproductive technologies,” “I am going to ask about the differences between the sexes.” I think the computer remarks I referred to are interesting because they suggest a conception of what is natural for human beings, or human children.)

In his book "The Jews. Are they human?" Wyndham Lewis writes: "Is it with us a compensatory fact that, being more stupid in the mass, we shoot up higher, when we do shoot up, in dazzling concentrations of intellectual power, and so produce what we describe as 'genius'? For 'genius' with us is an individual thing. Whereas all Jews are a sort of little geniuses." (1939: 68) Here are some reactions of mine, not in order of importance I assume. (A) The observation that the English are for the most part stupid with a few exceptions, of the most amazing level, is not new. (George Eliot - a woman, by the way - quotes Heinrich Heine making the observation when visiting; I presume it started with him.) (B) The observation along with Wyndham Lewis's remark that all Jews are little geniuses, in contrast with the English divide between many and few, is puzzling to me, because would you not expect a democratic culture (as English culture famously is) to be all little geniuses and a dictatorship to feature a leader genius and a set of stupid followers? (C) I wonder whether the appearance of a mysterious gap in English culture - you are either one of the stupid many or the next Newton, etc. - is the outcome of taboo rather than nature. (D) Elsewhere Wyndham Lewis more or less encourages this "social constructivist" explanation, which seems inconsistent to me. A year earlier, in his The Mysterious Mr. Bull, he writes of Churchill: "And he has committed the further sin - a mortal one in England - of making a disgusting exhibition of 'brains.' " (1938: 92) Given the taboo (or mortal sin), we have another explanation for why various people are struck by an absence in the continuum (to simplify) from very stupid to very clever when it comes to the English. Of course, there are people in-between, but they are not allowed to show it. ("But would not the taboo lead to everyone in England appearing stupid?" Maybe an exception is made for the opposite extreme.) How can Lewis later justifiably assert that the English don't produce in this in-between region given the taboo? (E) The taboo is puzzling to me, because sometimes (often even) it takes even more cleverness to hide one's cleverness. And once you see how, you think: what a clever fellow this is! (F) All little geniuses: the common man of England today (if we can speak of him) had this experience when watching Spanish football (Barcelona, the national team) in the 2010s. That is how far behind he is Wyndham Lewis in this matter.

Come, all prize-winning Dylans, and look at what I have found! Maria Popova is a high-profile essayist based in America. She has written on Milan Kundera's book The Unbearable Lightness of Being, including one piece on what he has to say there on chance. The essay of hers that I have in mind is entitled "Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives." A striking feature of this essay is that it is dated September 11th 2023. "9/11" it says within the website address. The numbers are highly significant to Americans: a day of a month when their country was spectacularly attacked, often used to refer to this attack. Is Popova trying to convey something by this choice of posting date, or is it just a coincidence? If I may risk getting involved with such matters, I believe she is trying to convey something. It will take a few sentences to justify this belief (if justification be possible). Her essay deals with the significance for human beings of coincidences. She summarizes Kundera thus: "It is important, Kundera argues, to be awake to serendipity — for letting coincidences go unnoticed deprives our lives of 'a dimension of beauty.' " Kundera writes: "it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he deprives his life of a dimension of beauty." (Part 2, section 11) But you can notice mysterious coincidences and interpret them (or explain them) but in a way that makes you experience unpleasantness rather than beauty. (Why did your son stand under the granary at the precise time at which termites caused it to fall? Evans-Pritchard's Azande attribute witchcraft here, instead of saying that it is just a coincidence.) Kundera overlooks the possibility of chiding a man in a way that merely causes experiences of unpleasantness in response to coincidences thenceforth noticed. Popova does not say anything about this in her essay, but her choice of posting date suggests to me that she is aware of the problem. I think this: she is indicating that she is aware of the overlooked possibility, by causing readers to get involved with interpreting her posting date without thereby experiencing beauty. Very clever! (But it could be that she is merely aware of the possibility of interpreting SOME coincidences one notices without experiencing beauty, rather than all of them. If so, she does not realize 'my' objection to Kundera above. If aware, I suppose I prefer her to just say it. Is it taboo?)

Everything we do is merely human, but what is it to be human? That is a question for we far-sighted birds, we anthropologists. But of course today there is another seeker who calls themselves by the name of anthropologist. How these Englishmen pervert the use of words! The question of what is man has receded; they are fieldworkers, stiff English fieldworkers, seeking out the views of this individual and that, as if these individuals were not entirely creatures of the herd - as if distinguishing them were not as pointless an endeavour as identifying the heroic sheep. If the question figures at all, it figures only to prompt the views expressed, views which the anthropologist-fieldworker dare not himself evaluate, lest they ring hollow. Once the English anthropologist would enter the remotest of tribes, now he is confined to his own villages. But what picture can he paint of these villages and their individuals with their views, their views even of man? In a neat little book, one such fieldworker tells us of a farmer: “Doris feels that women are as different from men as Jersey cows are from Fiesians. Indeed, rather like Jerseys, women are anxious and unpredictable creatures. They are emotional and weak, nervous and prone to worry: they need patient handling. Meanwhile, like Friesians, men are large, predictable beasts. Also, they are independent ‘loners’ who do not show their true feelings, and they do everything to extremes, from working to drinking to fighting.” (Nigel Rapport 1993: 88) Who in our day shares their views of man and woman, if they are even so brave as to suppose that these two exist? Yes, who offers up this juicy vein from which the fieldworker draws blood? Farmer Doris and friends! Only they are suitable for this English anthropology, this characteristic product of a scientific age, preoccupied with the facts of who said what, that it can observe and record; but what of those who will not talk with the fieldworker, or only talk after years? And what too of the speech which hides itself in mumblings or whisperings? The portrait is of these ready talkers, available for observation at any English pub, these garrulous types.

The Golgi apparatus is a little thing in a cell, an organelle, which processes proteins. Some of the terminology concerning this apparatus will sound amusingly familiar to philosophers of gender. The Golgi has a cis side, from which proteins enter, and a trans side, from which proteins exit. ("How did you even find this?" Nevermind, and let's ignore the convergence; it is not an acceptable topic of investigation!) Now there are two models of protein movement through the Golgi. I will introduce them through a history taken from Pamela L. Connerly's 2010 Nature article "How do proteins move through the Golgi apparatus?" Once upon a time, the cisternal maturation model was dominant. In 1998, a rival model called the vesicular transport model was developed and advocated by George Palade and Marilyn Farquhar. The Rothman group, named after James Rothman, supported the model and it became dominant: Rothman and Randy Schekman, a researcher whose results converged with those of Rothman, won a prize in 2002. ("I have never won a prize.") The vesicular transport model became dominant. But research on the Golgi apparatus across a variety of species led to the return of the cisternal maturation model as a contender. Today (that is 2010 in the history) most researchers support this model, because of tests by Benjamin Glick and Akihiko Nakano in which the two models make different predictions and the evidence supports the predictions of the cisternal maturation model. When you read the section of Connerly's article entitled "Which model is more accurate?" it seems you have to accept that a rational change has occurred, based on compelling evidence. But when you read the article again, you realize that the evidence that led to the vesicular transport model becoming dominant is just different. Assume that the earlier change was rational too. But then would it not be a tie? The two models have different predictions regarding earlier test T1 and the vesicular transport model predicted accurately here, leading rationally to its dominance, but they also have different predictions regarding later test T2, which focuses on something different to T1, and what happened in this later test was predicted accurately by the cisternal maturation model. A tie, it seems to us casual observers! (Instead what happens is that there is wide acceptance of the cisternal maturation model and an attempt to explain, while assuming it, the earlier evidence which led to the dominance of the rival model.) I find this article by Connerly useful, but when you look at it carefully, I think the level of explanation is not the level in philosophy (done quite well), and the initial appearance of rational development in response to evidence is not transparently correct - not to us anyway!

I have lived in the city of Manchester since 1998, with about 9 months in London during 2001-2. And I suspect there is a contradiction in the culture. On the one hand, the people of Manchester like flashy/iconic stuff to boast about: rock'n'roll music (or whatever!), football trophies, etc. "We're Manchester. We've got..." (I have asked what is iconic about Berlin since the removal of the wall and have yet to hear an answer.) On the other hand, it is a broadly left-wing city. Now how can you reasonably expect left-wing sympathies from a person who achieves a lot in their career but doesn't have a family or neglects them, and works all day and much of the night? It is rational for such an achiever to think, "I work hard and make these sacrifices, and you need to as well if you share my aims or similar ones." Hey, what about worker rights? But how to realize this combination: we want achievements to boast about AND we don't want the achievements to be at the cost of rational left-wing sympathies? The latter requirement seems to favour mainly a person whose family is already in a field, or else in a closely related field. Because if you are new to a field (or maybe to just a field which brings a greater likelihood of producing people/achievements for boasting about), to achieve beyond average you are probably going to have to work day and night, and might well have to neglect family; and then what left-wing sympathies are rational for you? "I work so hard, and you should too!" But it does not fit with left-wing sympathies to mainly have people from these families governing, these families as writers, etc. (To simplify, what they would seem to require is people who can provide the achievements within reasonable hours and that is just going to reproduce hierarchy.)

In my earlier contribution today, entitled "Why did Joseph Raz write so much?" I sort-of objected to a lecturer's view. I want to do that again to another lecturer. (I have edited this one the next day; it is not as good as Kantsequentialism I admit). I remember a marker's meeting and this other lecturer told us, "With everything you say here, you will be assessed as a professional." As I understood her, she was advising us to think carefully about what we say and ensure it is in line with (the current) professional norms. I suppose this is especially good advice for some people. If you took away the professional norms they abide by, or slackened them merely, you would find they become strikingly aggressive. You know how: some people, as soon as they find the norms are weak, out come excessive insults and the like. (Relatedly, you won't be able to take away "political correctness gone mad" in favour of a common sense approach because some people just can't do that: they can't stabilize at the desired level.) It is either this stuck up professional approach or a charging bull even! But for me the advice is questionable. To begin with, I am quite a just person by character, so my lapses are quite forgivable - any sensible system should. (I found the University of Manchester is very harsh with these, like my annoying little email poem to Mancept about Mary Midgley, and displays double-standards too. A university building is obviously going to block the sunlight into my private residence, yet it is built. Okay, I shall be paid a bit of money through a lawsuit, but why don't they get rid of the designers/planners? "No, we don't get rid of that person - they are not on the kind of tight rule-system you are on"?) Furthermore, some of the lecturers have observed me since I was a teenager, when it was not reasonable to expect me to behave as suggested. This professional act won't convince them at all; because such a person is unlikely to turn into that. (If you say, "There goes a professional philosopher," to various anthropologists, they will probably laugh.) Anyway, to return to why the professional norms here have value: maybe they are of value to certain social classes. There is a kind of posh man (even posher than you) and he can sit with his students and let them use his first name and they still won't bother him, but you can't do what he does. They (or some of them) will email you lots, heavily breathe malodorous breath in your direction, etc. (Well, we all use/used our first name, apart from Kimberley Brownlee - "I am Dr. Brownlee" - and this may well be a good idea, because the relaxed approach seems to me significantly to the advantage of certain people. I have no idea why they are so favoured, apart from immense desire for a high-impulse control "old" father figure - well, high-impulse control compare to me!!!!!)

It must have been after 2008 and before 2013. I was talking to one of the new lecturers in philosophy at the University of Manchester - well, he is not new now. And he said, disapprovingly, that Joseph Raz was nowadays writing lots and in a rush and he was making mistakes. I think the lecturer did not have in mind mistakes which are valuable for philosophy, or any other field, but careless and unfruitful mistakes. The new lecturers seemed to me more open-minded than the old lecturers, but the old lecturers don't see much difference and maybe that should be my perspective. (2002: "He used to write good philosophy; I don't know what he is writing now," about another philosopher.) I have these two objections to the lecturer's disapproval, if they can be called objections even. (A) Raz was doing well at Oxford - the University of Oxford - and maybe someone there worked out that this writing lots is a good idea for Raz and we just don't realize why. However, I don't want to exclude that Raz came up with the idea of doing so himself. It does not seem unlikely to me. (B) There are some people regarding whom I want to know what they think about a lot of stuff. Or if "regarding whom" sounds too fancy: I want to know what some people think about a lot of stuff! (But maybe not all people, not directly anyway - maybe there can instead be a representative who manages to present the views of lots of people.) Joseph Raz: I would like to know what he thinks about this, that, and the other: the cultural differences between Oxford and Columbia, the scoring system in tennis, what he as a liberal Jew thinks of Islam, etc. It is a bit undignified to tell us all this I suppose; but hey, I'm interested. (This book of reviews by Bernard Williams is not enough!) Of course he'll make silly mistakes proceeding at the pace of demand. Maybe he will ALSO look less novel. Anyway, I'm still interested.

Philosophers sometimes write nonsense, it is true, and some of it, I am afraid to say (!), is probably on purpose. But have you ever read other disciplines? I was reading Deborah E. Aronson and Erik L. Snapp's engaging chapter "Translocon Organization in Cells" in Robert Zimmermann's 2009 edited collection entitled Protein Transport into the Endoplasmic Reticulum. In the abstract, they write, "A protein's function is a product of its inherent structural and biochemical characteristics. Equally critical to protein function are elements of its cellular environment..." I am disposed to make this argument. "(1) If a protein's function is a product of its inherent structural and biochemical characteristics, then elements of its cellular environment are less critical than these two to its function. (2) A protein's function is a product of its inherent structural and biochemical characteristics. Therefore (3) Elements of its cellular environment are less critical than these two to its function." (3) is the conclusion of this modus ponens argument, but conflicts with the second sentence quoted. Since modus ponens arguments generally involve valid reasoning, to agree with the text we must get rid of a premise. Getting rid of premise (2) would conflict with the first sentence quoted. Should I reject premise (1) then? Should I open myself up to the enigmatic possibility that a factor C can be equally critical for a protein's function even if its function is a product of factors A and B? ("The function of an institution studied by an anthropologist is determined by inherent-to-the-society factors A and B, but equally critical for its function is whether the society studied has entered into relations with an imperialist society. Sure its function is determined by A and B, but whether it can actually carry out the function is determined by whether it is in this relationship or not!" This is such a tricky position.)

Many people make observations contrasting societies or parts of a single society or what a single society has been like over time. A caricature of an old person, such as a grandfather, is that his conversation often involves telling us how things were in his youth compared to now: “In my day…” Social scientists also make such contrasts: in some cases it is their job even to do so. But they do so in highly restricted ways. For social anthropologists, some themes are much more prominent than others, as if they were in a game with more points for writing on one of those themes, such as kinship and gift exchange. For economists, it is as if there were more points for devising a rational actor model. This raises an important but neglected question in philosophy of social science: whether it is better to submit to some such framework, to play such a narrow-minded game, than simply observe? In this paper, I draw attention to how comedians on the Internet, specifically on Instagram, also use restrictive frameworks for social observation. I focus on three who make a set of contrasts between “how we talk with how they talk”: to suggest differences of character or skepticism about certain concepts used in another society. A question arises of whether this is better for getting viewings or likes.

In liberal democracies, there is supposed to be freedom of belief and freedom of speech. But at the same time, diagnosis of certain mental disorders is currently based on what beliefs the patient (or person) expresses. "Don't worry," I anticipate a health specialist saying, "because diagnosis is based on a number of criteria and not belief alone." But there is a problem, I think, when you score quite highly on some of the other criteria. Let's suppose you need to score 15 out of 20 on an evaluation system to count as a schizophrenic and imagine that you are at 13 out of 20 before we examine the beliefs you express. Now what freedom of belief, or at least freedom of speech, do you have? You express your beliefs and you are at high risk of being counted as a schizophrenic and being treated accordingly: forced medication or hospitalization too. In my experience (if I may introduce it) and from my reading , there are a number of restrictions on what you can do if you score higher on a diagnostic system. (i) During lockdown, I became interested in how good famous rappers are as rhymers and I tried writing some rhymes like theirs. I pinned one up on my apartment wall, which featured a demon. It is slightly lewd. The assistant to the psychiatrist strongly proposed that I had been having dark thoughts prior to hospital admission (in September 2023, the proposal's being made in October; freedom of speech includes freedom of writing too). (ii) I met my care coordinator last week and he told me that when he was a student he lived in an old house with fellow-nurses, and some nurses reported seeing a ghost. I joked (to an amused reaction): what if I report such an experience? An assessment question I am asked every two weeks is if I have had strange perceptual experiences. (By the way, the answer is genuinely NO. It is always no and I find this question tiresome.) (iii) Social withdrawal is not taken as evidence of mental disorder if it is culturally sanctioned, e.g. following the death of a loved one. This just seems overly conservative to me.

I have read Professor John Cottingham's article for iai news entitled "Wittgenstein vs Dawkins: Is God a scientific hypothesis?" twice, and I cannot resist responding to it. (A) Many people profess belief in God or make assertions which assume the existence of God, but they often don't do just that: they also participate in a whole religious way of life, notably involving rituals. As I understand Wittgenstein on the basis of Cottingham, the words "I believe in..." followed by "God" do not mean the same thing as the words "I believe in..." followed by "atoms." It is not just the last word in the sentence which has a different meaning, but the words before. The meaning of "I believe in" is different when it is bound up (not sure how to clarify "bound up") with a different set of practices. Cottingham writes, "Much contemporary philosophy of religion in the anglophone 'analytic' tradition has become a highly technical and theoretical business, largely conducted at the level of abstract intellectual debate. But the lesson to be drawn from Wittgenstein is that philosophers of religion need to be more sensitive to how religion actually operates in the life of its adherents. And this means, amongst other things, a greater attention to religious praxis, including, for example, the forms of worship, and the spiritual disciplines and practices that structure the religious life." But - believe believe believe - many religious believers also believe that belief in God is open to someone outside the specific religious practices they engage in (and would probably rank coming to belief and changing one's ways accordingly, if one is not a very good person, above partaking in the same rituals). Cottingham's Wittgenstein cannot seem to integrate this openness, or belief in openness. (B) Cottingham identifies a path to religious belief through suffering, endorsed by Wittgenstein, but this path just seems different to entry into a whole interwoven set of practices and beliefs, which his earlier references to Wittgenstein imply is the only way in. (C) The contemporary Western (or Euro-American) system for dealing with significant suffering, as it affects mind or soul, is, if you accept it (and how can you not?!), likely to convince you that the mind is just the brain. (Warning: messy transition!) What kind of experiences precede religious conversion? Depression and feeling of the meaningless of life, a desire to take a break from the superficial rewards of society, trauma: these are not unusual, are they? And they make one a candidate for medication. (Soon there will probably be early diagnosis by biomarker. "But I feel okay"! By the way, there are no sub-categories in the Wittgenstein category, but there are sub-categories for Derrida and Žižek. KRISTEVA: Hey, I don't have sub-categories!)

In book 1, chapter 4 of The Social Contract, Rousseau denies that an individual can form a valid contract with another individual to become the latter's slave. Such a person must be mad and madness creates no contract, he asserts. He uses this point to also argue that a people cannot enslave themselves to an individual. Now a philosopher might well argue that a people consists of individuals and each of these individuals can agree to become the slave of some other individual and the contracts stand; but this does not bind future generations, because they did not give their consent to their slavery. In a now almost entirely forgotten work entitled An Essay on the First Principles of Government (1771, second edition, section 2), Joseph Priestley agrees with this conclusion but for a different reason. He writes, "And though it may be supposed, that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation of all their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can never be supposed that the resignation is obligatory on their posterity; because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it should be so." But if future generations cannot be bound by the voluntary resignation because it is bad for the whole, is it not bad for the whole to allow for the earlier generation to be bound, even if it is voluntary? If what is good for the whole is the absence of a slave-master relation, then that surely applies at the time of the initial agreement, raising a question of how Priestley can consistently maintain (a) the initial generation are bound but (b) future generations are not and (c) this is because it would be bad for the whole.