Terence Rajivan Edward

In the society which I live in - should I call it England or UK (or even a Euro-American society - it is a good term, I suspect)? - we normally think that there are three main social classes: the aristocracy, the middle class, and the working class. The English ones are all famous, perhaps because they love fame: the English working class (the best!), the English middle class (Jane Austen, how’s the weather), the English aristocracy (the Royal family, pomp and pageant). But I have developed an alternative conception of the classes, or main classes. There is the class which devises rules - we don't know much about them. Let's call them "the ruling class lol." Then there is the class who just follow these rules, even if they are stupid rules - let's call them "the rule-following class lol." In between these two, is the class who say, regarding a rule that seems stupid to them, I will follow it if you give me a trick to show me how. For example, there is the rule that you should be polite in UK and say, "Please" when you want something. "I will follow this rule if you show me how to say it and say it in a polite way to someone I don't like." Here are some tricks: you tap your finger on your waist and when you are doing so that means "W-nk-r," etc. Let's call this class "M-th-rf-ck-rs lol." ("What about the class who just say, 'WHAT?' when you explain a simple rule to them?") Freud talked about repression and how repression is a condition of civilization, in Civilization and its Discontents. You have to repress some aggressive instincts or drives - I am not being too careful here, psychoanalysts - for there to be civilization. The third class identified above (excluding the parenthetical class of course) - in this order because of ease of exposition, not rank in society - don't repress much, I suspect. If they must suddenly repress more, it could be a problem. "Why do you keep tapping your finger? That's weird. What is going on there?" you wonder out loud. Be very careful here.

I have some disagreements with articles I read from The Guardian, if I recall correctly. But I cannot remember the names of these articles. I am sorry for not putting the reference(s). A comedian I know “told” me, "Don't say sorry: just don't do it." But the information I shall present may be of use to some people and I am not sufficiently humble to think that someone else is sure to tell you this. I recall that The Guardian, or a journalist for that paper, recommended the following: we evaluate a football training system not by its best players (such as Paul Scholes at Manchester United; does this reference point still work?) rather by how it improves the average player (Darren Fletcher). I think there is an aristocratic game along these lines: take the most unsuited person to a field and train them up and show the world, "Look: I managed to get this stupid person functioning, whom everyone else would have given up on." (I am probably heading for an aristocratic marriage therefore!) It could be a very dangerous game this. Newcomers to the game produce immigrants who become dictators in various countries. What they consider a stupid person, or unsuited to a field (to be more politically correct), is of so much higher a level than what experienced trainers in the game do, while the populations of some countries have become largely stupid owing to pursuit of the game. Well, there is a tricky question of whether it is useless in any field to be clever beyond a certain point. Dali was probably the best doctor in Paris and the best who-knows-what-else, but he said that if he were less clever he would have been a greater painter, and painting is his field it seems.

What is a biomarker? There are probably different definitions. Here I shall understand a biomarker to be a bodily substance which reliably indicates a disease. For centuries, people have probably been looking for a reliable biomarker for schizophrenia, though I recall reading that the pioneer was a nineteenth century Scottish doctor. The search for a biomarker for schizophrenia today is said to be in the name of objectivity. Currently schizophrenia is diagnosed by behavioural symptoms and perhaps the patient's reports of their experiences. A biomarker will provide objective diagnosis, it is said. Current diagnosis is based on subjective data. As philosophers we wonder, "What do 'objective' and 'subjective' mean here?" One answer is that "objective" means reliable and "subjective" means unreliable - call this "the reliability answer." But psychiatrists believe that their current non-biomarker diagnostic tests are reliable. Another answer then is that "subjective" means dependent on introspection or reports of experiences - call this "the introspection answer." The objective is not dependent. But (i) is not all empirical science always subjective then (and here let's take medicine to be science, for simplicity), because scientists have to report observing that the litmus paper changed colour and the like? And (ii) why strive for the objective if it does not entail an increase in reliability? A third answer is that "subjective" in medicine means that there is dependence on THE PATIENT's experience or reports of it (and does not concern observational reports by medical researchers). (And there is an ideal of medical science as objective: as minimising dependence on patient's experience or their reports of it when diagnosing.) Call this the "our science answer," because the concept of objectivity in medicine requires an explanation that uses the concept of a patient and does not mechanically import a general answer, from general philosophy of science or from John McDowell on "subjective" and "objective." You have to add this concept to understand what medicine as science is. With these answers introduced, I want to say something about a likely revolution that can occur given a successful biomarker for schizophrenia, which researchers are forever searching for but has yet to be found. Let's imagine that element X1 in the blood correlates highly with schizophrenic behaviour and so does element X2 and nothing else does, and these cover all cases previously called schizophrenia. One abandons the current diagnostic system, with its various subcategories of schizophrenia, and says there are two types: X1 schizophrenia and X2 schizophrenia. A scientific revolution occurs because of the successful discovery of biomarkers, which fascinatingly does necessarily involve an improvement in reliability. (Some dialogue. MARXIST: there will be an improvement in reliability, because the doctor cannot be reliable when dealing with patients outside their class. They experience these as a threat and consciously or unconsciously fail. I don't go for the attractive third explanation of the terms "objective" and "subjective" because the first definition is fine. And I reject care ethics as not taking into account abcs of Marxism on class struggle. AZANDEPRODIGY: Biomarkers more reliable? Come play my game - I'll testya. By the way, Prodigy is a music band and this comes from one of their songs: Breathe.)

ME: I read your paper "Who Will Sustain Sustainable Prosperity?" It has some proverbs, if that be the right word, about cake: "Have your cake and eat it," "There's more to life than cake," and "Share that cake." I have developed my own one. MIRIAM: Do go on. ME: Do you want to make a book of cake proverbs or something, almost all our own, us two individuals? KANTIAN-FOLKLORIST: Proverbs express the folk wisdom of a people. You don't make enduring proverbs by trying to come up with them. You aim at something else, something good, such as teaching people and you follow your duty in communicating and such proverbs occasionally arise, or they do in a few individuals. ME: Maybe. I just thought of one: the devil has the best proverbs. MIRIAM: Forgiveness forgives the proverb. CHRISTIAN: You cannot beat the devil in art. They can reach the highest levels. Only in forgiveness does he fail. ME: You know how there is a person who thinks, "If I know the rules of the game, I always win," and then thinks, "but I need some time to get the hang of the game: the bedding in period as it is called." MIRIAM: Everyone needs that? (O wait, retrospective success, or whatever the term is.) ME: Okay, let's say that we aim to change the game just before you have mastered it. But have you seen, in Super Mario World, the koopa that gets into the flashing shell? PRODIGY: Come play my game, I'll testya! NORMALCIRCUMSTANCES: Get back in the kitchen.

ECONOMIST: I study the rational pursuit of ends. What do you think of the relation between the rational pursuit of ends and logic is? LOGICIAN: I don't know. I just prioritise logic. If someone asks me, does a conclusion follow from certain premises, I tell them the answer (as I believe it to be). I don't think: it is rational for my aim(s) in life to fail here, so I will. And I don't think: it is rational for me to get myself into a state in which I am inwardly less logical, so I will. ECONOMIST: But surely you must make exceptions to your policy. LOGICIAN: This approach is too complicated for me, making exceptions in abnormal circumstances. But my body might intervene in some circumstances: I might pass out. FRESHSTILL1: My body is affected too, but I am much more sensitive than you are. My battery runs out so quickly. FRESHSTILL2: If I feel something slightly off in my body (and I attend to these things much more than you), then I interpret what is going on until I feel better. POSTMODERN PSYCHOANALYST: Freud and others tried to interpret the symptom, believing that when they got the correct interpretation it would go away. But the body is just not coherent. One symptom requires X and another symptom requires not-X. VALUEPOO: You have to prioritise doing well-formed poo, as depicted on bus stands in Manchester during Coronavirus season. MADMAN: A desk is your mother. A desk is your mother. A desk is your mother. PSYCHIATRIST: Okay, point taken!

I joined a Manchester comedian community in late 2024, as a performer (start and end dates are very tricky in this matter), and performed until April 2025. I noticed that quite a few comedians said that they had autism (none of them appeared to be lying). The autistic person in this community tries to identify the rules by which people acknowledge material as funny and meet those rules in their stand-up performances and WhatsApp contributions and when they laugh at others as an audience member: that is my interpretation, anyway. I think these comedians misunderstand the value of autism, or perceived value, in this community. ("The North of England is famous for character comedy and by pursuing this pick-up-artist of comedy project, I am a character," I imagine one saying.) What the community wants from an autistic person is: (i) to devise a system of rules for doing comedy which does not capture the public standard of funniness in this community (and probably is not even aiming to do so); (ii) to show how the system leads to interesting new comedy; (iii) to share the system. ("Is this input going to produce the expected output?" I don't know; the fault lies with Simon Baron-Cohen probably. Using the system probably has to expand our sense of what is funny: "I didn't realize this system would work but it does and it is broadening my horizons.") A comparison will hopefully be helpful. There is such a thing as univocalic poetry. When you write a given poem using this system, you can only use one vowel in that poem (but you can use it as many times as you want: that type can be tokened as many times as you want). This system (this set of rules) leads to interesting poetry. One day someone came up with the system and then they shared it, and now it is increasingly popular; I wonder why.

I joined a WhatsApp group for Manchester comedians in late 2024. It was split into two groups in 2025: one for idle chat and one for useful chat. I was on useful chat and then decided to join idle chat. There I encountered an assertion norm, if that be the right term, asserted by a renowned comedian diagnosed with autism: if it is funny, say it. Does he mean, "Say something if and only if it is funny"? (Say it if it is funny and if it is not funny, don't say it.) Or does he mean say it if it is funny (an imperative to share the funny), but you can say other stuff too. ("You are so rubbish at analytic philosophy compared to me." Who said that? "I have mapped everything already, all the qualifications, and all the other things you have no name for yet." My response: this is the rule-book, indeterminacy of translation, I am a community member! "I thought through all that years ago." HOW? Hopefully the autistic comedian will soon be better at analytic philosophy than me. Go marry him!) Either way, does the person suffering from/advantaged by autism assume an objective standard of funniness? Let's pretend that this comedian thinks that there are rules (or necessary and sufficient conditions) regarding what counts as funny. And he would take his success as proof: "I have some rules and I follow them and people laugh. And by following them, I laugh at others when they are funny and not otherwise, as revealed by a zero error count on this matter." Perhaps it will turn out that his success is community-specific and his proposed assertion-norm will have to be revised to: "Say something if and only if it is funny by a community standard." But what about: say something if you experience the thought as funny, as proposed by my first psychiatrist’s assistant? The gap between the classes in England must be the largest in any country!

We of course live in a scientific age, and in such an age it is impossible that a man does not measure his friendships. "This be my best friend," you say, for true science must always be public. "This be my second best friend" - located at a great distance of course. "This be my third best friend" - and the distance between second and third even greater. But then you grow old and where are these friends now, you short sighted fish? It is a scientific age, but you have still not adapted to it, and gave up ranking beyond third. Granted you have a table, but it is a ridiculous table of three. Consult the periodicals: nothing could be more ridiculous than a table of three. Then you encounter fourth and fifth, as you correctly hypothesized in your mind - your intuition is indubitable - but did not trouble yourself to verify. "Hello friend," they say ironically to you, a chemist too intoxicated to detect irony. Furthermore, how did you become friends with one, two, and three? Common interests, emotional bonds, sexual desire - what else would create that most absurd of things, a man who is friends with a woman, in the third case textbook displaced narcissism? Thus my first warning: rank beyond three and rank until you include the men of this sleepy town! But what good are they, anyway? What friends do you need, my friend? You are a mere animal guided by your instincts, but if science has taught us anything, it is the danger of our instincts. My friend, become friends with at least one random person. Let the computer decide, lest your unconscious drives intervene. Write one of those programs of yours, who in the West codes better? [Pastiche over: it is insane to imitate Nietzsche perhaps but is it billions of times more sane than any other "thing" I do?]

We think of the infamous French philosophers as largely ignoring Wittgenstein. But they can be interpreted as reacting to him, in particular his "Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Deleuze, and JULIA KRISTEVA talk and write nonsense until some sense emerges, before returning to nonsense, or so it often seems. The manager probably says, "That's okay. As long as some value emerges in the process of doing so. It is like the English tradition of gardening, isn't it? The English let their plants grow in accordance with nature, with a few touches here and there to ensure a bearable end-product. It is not like French gardening, in which there is strict regimentation." Then what ensues is massive opposition from English and American philosophers. "What the hell?" (Apologies for use of this word.)

Is the concept of postmodern pastiche even coherent? If we try to answer this question in the traditional British analytic style, we will assume that the concept is a complex concept which results from combining two more basic concepts: the concept of pastiche and the concept of something's being postmodern. Then we will try to define each by specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for each, probably going through several definitions for each if past history of analytic definitional attempts is anything to go by. I am not going to use this approach here, because I don't really use it to understand literary theory and related art theory. ("Are you gay?" This is not an acceptable question in a tolerant liberal culture. Anyway, I have this other concept, namely reverse Alan Turing level: they inject you with stuff for being heterosexual.). During modernism, each individual tries to pioneer their own style, or else groups do, groups here being smaller than all participants (the surrealist style, the cubist style). Postmodernism, as I shall understand it (influenced by Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus), is an era in the arts which proclaims that all possible styles have been produced and so there is nothing left to do but imitate old styles in new combinations. This is called postmodern pastiche. It is not meant to be satire. Pastiche is non-satirical imitation. Now here is my problem with the concept of postmodern pastiche. The trend of literary interpretation known as deconstruction is supposed to be a paradigmatic instance of postmodernism, that is to say, an ideal example of this. But deconstruction avoids getting involved with intentions. But to apply the concept of pastiche as non-satirical imitation, one has to get involved with intentions. “This piece is not intended as satire. This is pastiche.” To be more precise, the following combination seems a problem: (i) Deconstruction is a paradigmatic instance of postmodernism: an ideal example. (ii) Deconstruction avoids attributing intention. (iii) Postmodernism involves pastiche. (iv) Pastiche is detected by detecting intentions. (By the way, the loose influence of Wittgenstein is: why is the world not the totality of things, rather the totality of facts? “Because the same things might be arranged differently and then it is not the same world.” Yes, that’s the stock answer.)

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.