Terence Rajivan Edward

I draw attention to four differences between Carl Schmitt and Wyndham Lewis: (A) Schmitt characterizes certain war-mongering liberals as naive and Lewis characterizes them as wicked; (B) Schmit is not aware of the thought of running an authoritarian regime with a liberal surface, but Lewis is; (C) Schmitt, unlike Lewis, allocates no role to divinity in protecting the ways of a nation; and (D) Lewis is prepared to resign himself to the end of a nation’s way of life but Schmitt is not. (There is no fascism category, so I have placed this in the closest one to that.)

“ Is there any point in reading British philosophy? What is Professor Crispin Wright arguing for in his paper ‘(Anti-)Sceptics Simple and Subtle: G.E. Moore and John McDowell?’ ” Here I offer a light substitute, which is only dreamily like the original perhaps: as if someone skimmed the paper, understood little, and made a guess. I argue that Moore’s “Here is a hand” argument against the skeptic fails, because the skeptic will not accept the premise and Moore said nothing about our having a default position which is different from the skeptic’s starting point. And McDowell’s disjunctivism about sensory experience does not in itself undermine skepticism, because we cannot internally distinguish hallucination from normal perception, or it does not tell how we can, even if one should not posit sense data as the object of direct perception in both. McDowell too must appeal to a default position and then it is unclear what his disjunctivism adds to opposition to skepticism.

I have written quite a bit on British structural-functionalist anthropology, an old-fashioned kind of anthropology which interests various (mainly American) analytic philosophers today, preoccupied with defining social structures. I take my main contribution to be in my 2023 journal publication "Are individuals a problem for British structural-functionalist anthropology?" There I consider the problem of what to make of an individual who does not appear to fit in their role, given the official role structure of an institution. The traditional approach of British structural-functionalist anthropology is to assume that individuals fit into their official roles; one does not get involved with what does not fit! Contrary to this approach, I introduce the option of specifying an alternative social structure of roles to the official social structure. (That is my innovation!) In the alternative structure (hopefully), the individual is not out of place: given this alternative understanding of the roles, they play their role well. Recently I started rereading Alice Munro's famous story Voices and I think this story is encouraging for my departure from tradition (though it is a dangerous departure - see "My dangerous social anthropology (and Lacanian psychiatry)"). Munro writes, "The square dancing had complicated patterns or steps, which a person known for a special facility would call out at the top of his voice (it was always a man) and in a strange desperate sort of haste which was of no use at all unless you knew the dance already. As everybody did, having learned them all by the time they were ten or twelve years old." He is the instructor, given the official roles, but he is no good for this purpose: you need to know the steps already, which everyone but the anthropologist does. I think the anthropologist should wake up now. If he is no good at this, maybe his role is not best described as dance instructor (or whatever the term is in the small town Canadian setting)? But if you ask about this, you might just be told: of course he is the instructor, he calls out the steps!

John Rawls's proposed principles of social justice apply only to the basic structure of society, not to institutions or other entities beyond it. But what is the basic structure of society? In the abstract to "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice," Professor Miriam Ronzoni writes, "I argue that two understandings of the notion of basic structure seem to be present in the literature, either in implicit or in explicit terms. (1) According to the first, the basic structure is to be equated with a given set of institutions: if they endorse the right principles of justice, the basic structure of society is just; (2) According to the second, a society has a just basic structure if and only if its institutional web manages to realize the relevant principles of justice as well it can. In (2), the institutional structure is not a given: different social circumstances call for different institutional solutions in order to achieve a just basic structure overall." (2007: 68) The second concept seems unclear from this quotation, but I interpret Ronzoni as making this contrast. The first concept defines the basic structure of society in terms of a list of institutions, regardless of the society (e.g. the government, schools...); the second allows for one society to have a different basic structure to another. Now let's suppose you start listing institutions which are part of the basic structure of a society: the government, schools, hospitals, and law courts. Someone asks you, why these? Then you give a criterion for inclusion (or criteria - must I say this?). But won't the criterion allow for some variation from society to society? For example, you might give the criterion (in need of vagueness reduction) "The major social institutions," or, alternatively, "The legally coercive institutions." (These are proposals from G.A. Cohen, more or less.) Both of these will allow for societal variation, e.g. schools are counted as part of the basic structure in society A but not in society B, where everyone is home schooled. If there is a difference between Ronzoni and opponents, her presentation of the contrast is overdrawn: they have a universal list and I don't.

In his "A Critical Examination of Mainland China’s Scholarship in the History of Philosophy," Jinze Liu objecting to Gongqing Wu says that psychological egoism and moral realism are consistent. Psychological egoism is, um... er... um... er..., the view that all of our actions are motivated by our individual self-interest; or maybe the view that any individual's actions are motivated by what they believe to be their self-interest. Moral realism is the view that, um... er.... um... er...., (i) some moral discourse consists of sentences expressing propositions and (ii) some moral propositions are true and (iii) this is because they correctly represent reality as featuring moral properties that are there whether we believe in them or not. For example the sentence "The Holocaust was bad" expresses the proposition that the Holocaust was bad and this proposition is true because the Holocaust had the property of being morally bad, whether we believe it had this property or not. I cannot see any logical inconsistency between psychological egoisim, understood in either of the ways specified, and moral realism. But one of the arguments against moral realism is that the best explanation for disagreements over which moral propositions are true is that there are no moral properties. Now if you accept psychological egoism, you are going to think that the parties to the disagreement just assert the propositions that are, or seem to them, to be in their self-interest. Even if psychological egoism is logically consistent with moral realism, a psychological egoist might well find it difficult to resist arguments such as this against moral realism.Once you adopt this perspective, there is a question of why you would believe that there nevertheless are moral properties. Why do you need to posit them?

John Rawls is famous (in some circles) for two methods he proposes concerning how to decide between proposed principles of social justice, namely the original position and reflective equilibrium. I shall focus on the former method. The basic structure restriction, let us say at this stage, is that proposed principles of social justice are only being recommended for institutions that are part of the basic structure of a society. A question I have is whether the restriction is supposed to be agreed upon before using Rawls's proposed method or after. Two reasons for saying after. First, there are people who will not agree to the restriction beforehand, including one of the two main opponents Rawls has in mind, namely the utilitarian (as understood in social justice debates). The utilitarian recommends that all institutions realize their principle. How are you going to get the utilitarian to care about the result from using the original position method? Perhaps say, "Just work with the restriction provisionally and the outcome of the original position method will reveal a problem with your unrestricted recommendation as well." (I think the extent to which the utilitarian differs from the Rawlsian is insufficiently appreciated.) Second, it is conceivable that we can enter principles into the original position which are recommended for all institutions and individuals in that model will reject the recommendation in favour of principles restricted to the basic structure, providing an argument for the restriction suitably understood. (You will have to say that these selected principles of social justice are only being recommended for the basic structure, rather than saying that this "only" is true of all proposed principles. By the way, Rawls's writings on the basic structure are very difficult to decipher, I find.)

A philosopher (or political theorist or economist) proposes a principle of social justice (or set of them). They say that the principle applies to the basic structure of a society. What is that? They present a list of institutions which together form this structure: the government, schools, law courts, hospitals, and more. For each institution, we can ask a specialist what they think of implementing this principle. They will tell us things like "Our research indicates that this is how a hospital can realize it" or "Our research entails that it cannot be realized in a hospital." Regarding the latter example reaction, we are to reject proposed principles of social justice which cannot be implemented by the basic structure of a society. But what if the social justice philosopher does not give a list of institutions which are part of this structure? Instead they say that they are recommending their principle for a variety of societies BUT what counts as the basic structure in one society and in another may be different. That is Professor Miriam Ronzoni's position, as I understand her, in her paper "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice." The important objection I wish to make is that with her relativization of what counts as the basic structure to a society, we have insufficient information about which institutions principles of social justice are being proposed for, preventing us from empirically evaluating the principles: answering can they be realized for the societies they are being proposed for or not? To avoid this problem, I suspect Ronzoni is going to need multiple lists of institutions, three say, each list capturing the basic structure of a type of society; then you ask whether the principles can be realized for the institutions in list 1, list 2, and list 3.

In "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice," Miriam Ronzoni claims that there is ambiguity in the term "the basic structure of society." There are two concepts associated with this term. I am not convinced that what she has in mind are concepts at all. (I prefer the term "the basic structure of a society.") These are three different concepts, I suppose! (A) The basic structure of a society is the set of institutions in a society to which Rawls's principles of justice apply. (B) The basic structure of a society is the set of institutions in a society to which principles of social justice apply. (C) The basic structure of a society is the set of institutions in a society to which requirements of social justice apply. (This is neutral on whether we can specify these requirements in principles.) A utilitarian would reject a distinction between the basic structure of a society, to which their utilitarian principle applies, and non-basic institutions, to which their principle does not apply. All institutions should be "governed" by utilitarianism! So I presume a utilitarian would favour associating the use of the term "the basic structure of society" in the Rawls literature with the concept specified by (A). If all three definitions are legitimate, then there is ambiguity - maybe I will have to withdraw my earlier proposal for avoiding ambiguity, so sorry.

In "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice," Miriam Ronzoni introduces four numbered propositions (or sentences, if they are not propositions). The propositions are meant to approximately specify the structure of Rawls's theory of justice. (I am going to leave aside what "approximately specifying the structure" means.) This is (2): "The subject of social justice is the basic structure of society." This is (3): "The basic structure of society should be regulated by the principles of justice delivered by the theory according to (1)." Ronzoni asserts that (3) is ambiguous and distinguishes two interpretations of it. But given her title, the reader is anticipating that she will say that every numbered sentence in which the term "the basic structure" features is ambiguous, because there are two different concepts associated with this term. Why does she focus on (3) rather than (2)? No idea. As I understand her (I have not read the paper 100 times), she is basically saying that there are two concepts of the basic structure and you get different results in political philosophy depending on which one you work with. As I understand her further, the first concept is defined by a list of institutions. To specify the basic structure of a given society when using this concept, you repeat the list, e.g. the government, schools, law courts. The second concept is defined "relativistically." It is possible (at least logically possible) that one set of institutions form the basic structure in one society and another set form it in another society.

Some cut and paste. In "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice," Miriam Ronzoni introduces four numbered propositions (or sentences, if they are not propositions). This is (3): "The basic structure of society should be regulated by the principles of justice delivered by the theory according to (1)." Ronzoni asserts that this is ambiguous and distinguishes two interpretations of it, which she refers to as X and Y. Interpretation X is composed of two propositions: 3i(X) First, we determine what the basic structure is and which institutions are part of it; 3ii(X) Then, we should design these institutions (and these institutions only) in a way that respects Rawls’s two principles of justice. Interpretation Y is also composed of two propositions: 3i(Y) First, we should understand which conditions have to be in place for us to be able to say that in a given society S such principles are satisfied; 3ii(Y) then, we have to ask which institutional structure needs to be set up in order to allow the principles of justice to be realised in the sense specified by 3i(Y), in the specific context in which we are operating. Cut and paste over. Why not say this: the concept of the basic structure of society is, more fully, the concept of the set of institutions in a society to which Rawls's principles apply? Then you can say that there is no ambiguity in (3), but there are different conceptions of what the set of institutions which form the basic structure are in a given society and also different conceptions of how you work out the list of such institutions for a given society. Regarding the latter, one method is to just have a list that applies to all societies and then repeat list for the society in question, whereas the method I take Ronzoni to recommend involves the possibility of different correct lists for different societies. ("I am going to the bank" is a renowned example of an ambiguous sentence, because there are two concepts of a bank, namely river bank and money bank. For each concept, there are probably different conceptions.)

In "Two Concepts Of The Basic Structure, And Their Relevance To Global Justice," Miriam Ronzoni introduces four numbered propositions (or sentences, if they are not propositions). This is (3): "The basic structure of society should be regulated by the principles of justice delivered by the theory according to (1)." Ronzoni asserts that this is ambiguous and distinguishes two interpretations of it, which she refers to as X and Y. Interpretation X is composed of two propositions: 3i(X) First, we determine what the basic structure is and which institutions are part of it; 3ii(X) Then, we should design these institutions (and these institutions only) in a way that respects Rawls’s two principles of justice. Interpretation Y is also composed of two propositions: 3i(Y) First, we should understand which conditions have to be in place for us to be able to say that in a given society S such principles are satisfied; 3ii(Y) then, we have to ask which institutional structure needs to be set up in order to allow the principles of justice to be realised in the sense specified by 3i(Y), in the specific context in which we are operating. One question I have is: why does interpretation Y count as an interpretation of (3) because it does not use the term "the basic structure of society" which figures in (3)? (Isn't an interpretation here something which specifies the meanings of terms involved?) Maybe 3ii(Y) just needs slight amendment to cope with this; I don't know. If you are a very nice very analytic philosopher, your reaction might well be this: Ronzoni is insufficiently clear here; at best it is rational for her to gamble on her point surviving a process of clarification, i.e. once we clarify it, nothing much changes in the big picture. Not sure. It seems to me that the contrast she wishes to portray is between defining the basic structure of a society (which Rawls's principles apply to; they are not for beyond) in terms of a fixed list of institutions regardless of which society we are in (the list presumably includes the government, law courts, schools); or, alternatively and relativistically, there is a way in which a given society can satisfy Rawls's principles and we call the set of institutions required by this way the basic structure of the society (another society might require another set).

Some counterexamples in philosophy do not require a tradition of making clever counterexamples in order to occur to someone, nor are they unlikely in the absence of such a tradition. For example, a Canadian political philosopher asserts, "Human beings are social beings." You say, "What about hermits? They are human beings too." That is your counterexample to their claim. You could be a total novice in philosophy and raise this question. It is just a common-sense reaction. But other counterexamples are different. Although it is possible for someone to just come up with one of these, it is more likely that they have become acquainted with some philosophical texts (or spoken discourses) in which people develop clever counterexamples and they have decided that it is a good idea to do this as well. Now in Professor Timothy WIlliamsons's introductory book Philosophical Method, he presents this counterexample: "Imagine someone seeing what looks just like smoke in the distance. He thinks: "There's a fire over there." He's right. There is a fire over there. But there's a catch. The fire hasn't yet started to smoke. It's just been lit to cook some meat. What he sees is really a cloud of flies, which have gathered because they smell the meat. Does he know there's a fire over there?" (2020: 45) This might become known as Williamson's fire example amongst some political philosophers, but Williamson says that it comes from Dharmottara (740-800), who worked in Kashmir. Counterexamples became important in 20th century analytic philosophy, a lot of energy went into producing them and a number were produced (e.g. by Wittgenstein and Derek Parfit), but it is reasonable to suspect that centuries before they were big in the world of Dharmottara. He learnt about some clever counterexamples and decided to make his own one. What to do with this suspicion? One response is: from now on I am doing advanced mathematical philosophy - anything else carries too high a risk of repeating the past. I am not overridingly disposed to this reaction myself - I don't think every clever counterexample I can think up already exists - but I do wonder whether Williamson's book consciously or unconsciously aims at producing this reaction!

It is tempting for us to imagine John Searle as a lone figure at literary theory conferences. There he is sitting seriously in the audience, amongst a set of fashionable clowns, as he probably thinks of them himself, listening to a clown give a lecture or seminar. Then comes question time. "Barbara, you have question." "Yes..." "Giyathri, you have a question." "Yes..." "Joseph Hillis, you have a question." "Yes..." Finally, having ignored Searle's persistently raised hand, they turn to him. "And you, I can't quite remember your name, but do you have a question?" After the conference, at the dinner, they are all eating together and talking in their jargon and then there is Searle at a table alone. Sure this could and probably would happen to you, but I doubt it happened to John Searle! One reason for doubt is available to us as analytic philosophers. We care about arguments. But the deconstruction trend Searle opposed implies the question: when does an argument begin and when does it end, are there unambiguous signifiers regarding these matters? Once they convince you that there are not, you are going to become stressed. "How am I going to function now as an analytic philosopher? I need another system of text interpretation. This is not for me," you will probably think. But literary theorists and literary critics also depend on making arguments and being able to detect their beginnings and end points. I suspect from the beginning there were prominent literary critics and theorists of the opinion that deconstruction is not a good idea or not a good idea for the average critic - for this reason or some other - and they were very happy that Searle appeared amongst them. (There is no John Searle category to put this in, but there is Searle's biological naturalism.)

The British anthropologist Dame Marilyn Strathern has a well-known argument about artefacts. According to this argument, anthropologists aim to describe the worldviews of the people studied; any artefacts they encounter are treated as exemplifying a worldview; thus (!) in the final fieldwork report, there is no need to refer to any artefacts because one just presents the propositions of the worldview (Strathern assumes these are highly general propositions). One can refer to an artefact as a helpful illustration, but it is not necessary to. I anticipate a challenge to the significance of Strathern's argument on these lines: okay, maybe it is not necessary for the fieldworker to refer to a certain artefact or set of artefacts or type of artefact, but some artefacts are so interesting that the fieldworker will not be able to resist referring to them. To illustrate (!): I have been working at the heritage house of a 19th century Victorian writer for over a year and in the dining room there is some fancy cutlery. Yesterday I noticed that beyond the dining table, there were some giant forks in the same style. In "On the origins of large forks," I wondered whether the giant forks were produced because the fork-producing business planned to sell forks to the colonies, to Britons on a civilizing mission, and the business was not sure about the proportions of some of the natives there. Let's suppose this speculation is true. Am I just going to say that people in Victorian times had different beliefs about the human to us BUT not refer to the giant forks? Of course I will refer to them: they are just too interesting not to, too much fun not to. But Strathern could reply that there are kinds of fieldworkers who will not refer to the giant forks, for example a snobbish kind who thinks, "This is the most interesting thing I have seen, therefore I will not refer to it," and turns their head away, literally or metaphorically. But should such a person be a fieldworker at all? (A political philosopher asked me, "Isn't anthropology just taking down notes about some people? Anyone can do it.")

I recall reading John Searle (John Rogers Searle) saying this: he has been to conferences with mainly literary theorists and it is like the circus; and he has been to conferences with neuroscientists and these people, in contrast, are serious about research. I cannot find the article now. But I still want to reflect on the remarks, which probably fit many people's casual impressions! Is such reflection permissible? I hope so. (A) Searle still keeps going to conferences with literary theorists. There is something about the clowns, etc., and their work which draws him back. (B) Searle himself is aware of the distinction between literary theorists, who work mainly on the philosophical foundations of literary interpretation, and specialist literary critics. It is not difficult to find literary critics who fit the stereotype of serious researchers. I work at a literary heritage house and I read skilled academic craftspeople in literary criticism. (C) But when they all become serious according to our stereotype, you get a problem I think. "Empty vessels make the loudest noise": they don't usually talk about their specialism to people who are not fellow specialists in that area, apart from a few smatterings. Then a clown gets in! They know some of what is going on in your specialism and some of what is going on in your friend's specialism and they do stuff with this information which is relevant to both. How long can neuroscientists avoid clowns? (D) You can try to meet the stereotype of a serious researcher yourself (or I can), but some people will still regard you as a clown. It doesn't much matter what you do really. In 2009, a serious paper of mine was published (my first publication), namely "Nagel on conceivability," and some philosophers came up to me and said words to the effect, "I see you have written on Nagel," nodded and then went their way, but not everyone took me as a non-clown I think!

Sainsbury's is a supermarket chain in the UK. At present, it uses the advertising slogan "Taste the difference." Presumably, the slogan is meant to convey that if you taste food from other supermarkets and then taste Sainsbury's food, you will find the food from Sainsbury's to be better. But there is another interpretation of the slogan, loosely inspired by Derrida (more specifically, the Derrida on auditory experience presented by Simon Glendinning in "Preface: Arguing with Derrida," Ratio vol. 13, 2000). According to this interpretation, the slogan is an instruction that cannot be followed. One can taste some food and one can taste some other food and one can reflect on the difference, but one cannot actually taste the difference itself: a difference between two meals is not itself a piece of food, available for tasting. But why would Sainsbury's use an instruction that cannot be followed as an advertising slogan. Maybe to convey, "Setting up our business was difficult. One of the problems we had to encounter was people who seemed to us to be friends and also experts, but they gave us instructions that we could not actually follow. We are letting you know about this problem." This will seem a very far-fetched interpretation in isolation, but what if one encounters a number of business slogans from a variety of businesses which are more sensibly interpreted as conveying problems faced? In light of these other slogans, the strange interpretation is more plausible. See my "Can philosophy cure madness? Three approaches" and then "Delivering what you needed "yesterday": extract from a faux French philosophical novel." (The psychiatrist wants me to return to normal perception, but maybe it is better that their perceptions are expanded instead! Anyway, it is 4-0 to me at the moment. You need to find some business slogans like these yourself.)

Jean-Marc retired to his chamber, planning to slumber. But somnolence did not immediately come. Instead he recollected conversations from the day and went over their contents. Was this the persistence of habit, undermining his plan? It is difficult to say. Jean-Marc derived a pleasure at the day's close from going through what had been said to him , responding not just to the openly asserted but also forming beliefs about all that was suggested. He found it difficult to forgo this pleasure. (Moving out of faux novel mode, my title is a variation on the slogan of the Amazon company's vans: "Delivering what you need tomorrow. Today." It can be interpreted in at least two ways: as meaning we helpfully deliver what you need a day early; but also (roughly) as we force things on you before you are ready. Or someone did this to Amazon! See: "Can philosophy cure madness? Three approaches.")

An old paradox surely. Is it in the closet somewhere? Consider a business, a mundane business, a hammer-making business let us say. Enormous amounts of mental energy and intelligence go into developing a successful business of this kind. The business must learn lots about the hammer, the materials that one uses to make the hammer, the hammer customer and their mysterious preferences, and more. It's crazy when you think about it: all that effort and intelligence into a dull subject like gloves, sorry I mean sponges, sorry I mean hammers. These people must be hammer mad! Here is the paradox. (1) There are people in the hammer business who devote a lot of energy and intelligence into hammers. (2) A person would only devote this much energy and intelligence into hammers if they were mad. (2, sorry I mean 3) The people in this business are not mad. Which proposition, if any, must go? "Reject (1): it is for the money." Q. Why do you need the money? You can get enough money to live happily without setting up such a business, or any business. (A. "There people have to set up their own business or the alternative is work for Jeremy Corbyn.") Also a person of this intelligence can work on satisfying topics like poetry instead of hammers. (Austrian author: "Not sure about that.") "Reject (1): an individual can get into the academic system or the literary system or the medical system, etc., but a family cannot long-term, and the individuals in this business care about their family." Does anyone care about their family that much? "What they did will not be remembered." Some people learn to. "Reject (1): the business gets going by specialization, which reduces the labour involved." Perhaps. (I want to put this in the category capitalism, but there is only anarcho-capitalism.)

A common man philosopher looking in at Western literary theory might regard it as a set of cults, in which reason plays little role. There are changes in literary theory, such as regarding which cult is dominant (the Derrida cult and then the Lacan cult) but these changes cannot be explained rationally. However, observing Western literary theory after some of John Searle's interventions, I think he has brought about a change in a way that involves receptivity to (epistemic) reason. That is how I see things anyway. ("What is the point of the previous sentence?") Searle and Derrida disagree over how to make sense of borderline cases. For example, between the categories of fiction and non-fiction is a grey area - semi-autobiographical work, etc. Derrida thinks that if the categories are legitimate, then either something is a work of fiction or it is not. Perhaps we don't know whether it is or not, but it either is or it isn't. Searle, influenced by Wittgenstein and Austin and more recent developments and maybe just his body, rejects this either-or position. I think there are a number of literary theorist who have read Searle and agree with his point, or are sympathetic to it, and they have decided to form a cult around Wittgenstein-lover Stanley Cavell. Searle argues that literary critics should not fear psychological attributions (e.g. the author intends such and such...) and that Derrida's argument for avoiding these is based on a logical positivist assumption: we need a mechanical way of verifying such attributions. Searle also interestingly argues less well in short-lived fashionable journal Glyph and then performs extremely well for the neutral in the famous The New York Review of Books; Searle has surely found a problem: Derrida cannot go out there with his style and his disciple is insufficient there against Searle. Literary theorists, or people on the fringes of it, moved by one or both of these turn to the Lacan-Žižek-and-friends system. I suspect the relationship of Western literary theory to reason is different from the relationship of analytic philosophy to reason, but it seems to me that developments in it occur in virtue of receptivity to reasons. (This material is important for evaluating Marilyn Strathern's 1987 paper on feminism and social anthropology, otherwise - Charisma Closet - why would I risk it? "Are you paranoid?" I am pro-Derrida, like Strathern.)

I anticipate one of my readers having this inquiry: "Since your letter to Hatty Preston, I have started watching her Instagram videos, but I have difficulty understanding the jokes. Can you explain?" I shall explain one from her video entitled Due Date on Instagram. She says that she only cares that the baby she is soon to have is ginger - presumably she means has ginger hair. In the UK, there is a prejudice against people with ginger hair. So her joke is paradoxical. We can specify the paradox as these propositions: "(1) Nobody wants a child with ginger hair. (2) I want a child with ginger hair. (3) I am not nobody." (Which proposition must go?) That is the main joke which I comprehend in her video. The reader replies, "Thanks for explaining that to me. I have never actually met a white man before, but I do know all the colloquial language in James Joyce's Ulysses"? I have the impression that various northern comedians (northern within UK) make videos on the Internet and more or less get the audiences they get anyway. Its global potential is totally underused. Maybe they don't understand the difficulties of being a northern comedian properly; maybe global audiences do not want them to change though. (There is no comedy section on here, so I have put it in Hegel:comedy.)

This essay actually focuses on a kind of madness, where one perceives a lot of “hidden” messages (or interprets the world so that there are a lot of these messages). Perhaps there are other kinds of madness. Anyway, I describe my experiences of this kind and I make three philosophical proposals for combatting madness: a Cartesian one, a Wittgensteinian one, and my own one, which I call “particularist.” My own one seems the riskiest of the three. (You need to download this one if you want to read it - this is just an abstract!)

Rawlsians and Schmittians share this common ground: they believe in the normative priority of political values over other values, when the two come into conflict. Political values ought to be prioritized. But in actual conflict of values, is the political always prioritized? Or does the political sometimes lose? From your political values, you can infer DO X, but other values lead you to infer DO NOT DO X. Probably it does sometimes lose, on the Schmittian understanding of political values: as requiring opposition to an enemy (to unreasonable citizens, for Rawlsians). In 1937, E. E. Evans-Pritchard wrote, "A political boundary now intervenes between the Azande of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the forests of the Belgian Congo wherein grows the poison creeper. However, it is rather for medical than for political reasons that the British authorities frown upon those who cross the border, because sleeping sickness having been entirely, or almost entirely eliminated in the Sudan, every effort is made to avoid reinfection by compelling Azande to live away from streams and by closing the border. It is therefore expressly forbidden for any Zande to cross into the Belgian Congo, and a man found to have broken this rule suffers a long period of detention." (1937: 278) Probably it is politically better from a Schmittian-Rawlsian-British perspective for the Azande to die - they keep crossing anyway to get their oracle poison, so they reject British law. But still the Azande are not allowed to cross the border, for medical reasons.

One of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's most quoted passages on Azande witchcraft says, "To our minds it appears evident that if a man is proven a witch the whole clan are ipso facto witches, since the Zande clan is a group of persons related biologically to one another through the male line. Azande see the sense of this argument but they do not accept its conclusions, and it would involve the whole notion of witchcraft in contradiction were they to do so. In practice they regard only close paternal kinsman of a known witch as witches. It is only in theory that they extend the imputation to all a witch's clansman." It is difficult for us not to imagine a Euthypro-like Azande telling Evans-Pritchard that he (!) must be going. Anyway, various responses have been given to Evans-Pritchard's passage, including proposing a Freudian censor preventing consistency, that the Azande use non-classical logic, and that a Sorites paradox is involved (Roy Sorensen). The famous anthropologist Victor Turner does not directly criticize Evans-Pritchard, but he strongly suggests a criticism. Evans-Pritchard writes simply of the Azande in the quoted passage. Turner, doing research amongst the Ndembu, distinguishes different characters. There is Muchona the Hornet and the jealous man who giggles when Muchona offers his interpretations, the worldly Kasonda: "Between these men lay the gap that has at all times divided the true philosopher from the politician." (1967: 132) Of Muchona, Turner soon tells us, "He would take a symbol, say the mudyi tree which is the pivotal symbol of the girl's puberty ritual, and give me a whole spectrum of meanings for it." It means mother's milk; it means learning; etc. Turner suggests that once you find the philosopher in the Azande tribe, he (or she) will offer a better solution to the problem Evans-Pritchard is posing. But I doubt Evans-Pritchard can be beaten like this!

Future readers: what you are reading is almost a sequel. Yesterday on PhilPapers, in my "On Professor Timothy Williamson against the claim that philosophy can only be history of philosophy," I responded to this quotation from Timothy Williamson: "If it is to act as a proper reality check on philosophers' theorizing, rather than just fuel to their prejudices, there will need to be a culture of using history written by serious historians, rather than whatever happens to suit one." (2020: 102) I expressed the view that the kind of history of most interest to analytic philosophers will have to be written by analytic philosophers. Probably some people are interested in elaboration of this opinion - some argument for it especially. In earlier papers, I have noticed that, regarding some of our leading philosophers, their minds wake up intensely when writing certain material and go to sleep when writing other material: there they are not thinking carefully and make elementary errors. I anticipate someone's saying that a philosopher has a limited amount of mental energy and if we make them wake up there, then their level in the areas we really value will decline. (Even I might be told, "You are a threat to the quality of philosophy.") From my experience of social anthropology, the anthropologist's mind also wakes up and sleeps but the pattern is different to what would be good for philosophy. 'We really want you to wake up there: go into detail and be precise!" To illustrate, here is a quotation from early on in Raymond Firth's We, The Tikopia: "It is hard for anyone who has not actually lived on the island to realize its isolation from the rest of the world. It is so small that one is rarely out of sight or sound of the sea. The native concept of space bears a distinct relation to this. They find it almost impossible to conceive of any really large land mass... I was once asked seriously by a group of them, "Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?" ' Almost impossible? Wake up Professor Firth: a lot more detail here please. But Firth's functionalist framework does not invite further attention here. Now if we work with the assumption that each discipline is doing its best, then we are going to be reluctant to change when the anthropologist (or the historian, by risky analogy) wakes up and sleeps. Thus you arrive at the conclusion that the history the analytic philosopher is after has to be done by an analytic philosopher: the earlier history is useful promptings. Now I want to register some objections and respond to one. (O1) "We are more talented than analytic philosophers, but we don't have the excellent management system these posh philosophers have - can you tell us what to do actually?" I am ignoring this objection. (O2) There is a kind of worker in another discipline who will think, "Now that I know what you are after, I can actually provide it." Problem (i): you will probably just get a response from me at best, because the point at which other analytic philosophers will say, "This is properly done," is high. Problem (ii): your complicated realistic work might just get replaced by a hypothetical or local example which raises the same issue with less distractions. Consider Thomas Nagel's 9 year old Davidson or John Searle's preference for Hilary Putnam's Polish logician example regarding how we count objects in The Construction of Social Reality: 3 objects (common sense) or 7 (Polish logician). Problem (iii): will this kind of worker come across as serious to Professor Timothy Williamson? (Letter to Kristeva island: only males today?)

In his introductory book Philosophical Method, Timothy Williamson writes, "The idea that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy is self-defeating, for it is itself a controversial philosophical option, which we are under no obligation to accept." (2020: 91) I interpret Williamson as making an argument which begins with two premises and infers a conclusion. (It has a clear beginning and an end to me, Julia Kristeva!) (1) If it is a philosophical position that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy, then it is not true that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy. (2) It is a philosophical position that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy. Therefore by modus ponens (3) It is not true that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy. END OF ARGUMENT. Against (1), could not someone say this: there is a bit of philosophy within the history of philosophy and the philosophical position described is part of that bit? "In taking up this philosophical position, one does NOT exit the history of philosophy and so one can consistently maintain that philosophy can only be the history of philosophy." ARGUMENT DISCUSSION OVER. Also regarding history and philosophy, Williamson writes, "If it is to act as a proper reality check on philosophers' theorizing, rather than just fuel to their prejudices, there will need to be a culture of using history written by serious historians, rather than whatever happens to suit one." (2020: 102) My view is that the kind of history of most interest to analytic philosophers will have to be written by analytic philosophers. (Also Williamson presents this cloud of flies, smoke, fire example from Dharmottara: there is a fire but it is yet to smoke; what looks like smoke is a cloud of flies (2020: 45). Gettier: "Interesting, but how about this: Jones does not own a Ford but Brown is in Barcelona." Owns a what? Gettier is either not entering this competition of making the most enduring example or he plays counter-intuitively.)

Yes, how could anything originate from its opposite? It cannot. And absurdity of absurdities: how can a great philosopher secure his reputation from the support of ones who know nothing of great philosophy? In his "Justice Beyond Equality," a Rawlsian (misleadingly) writes of a book, "It is certainly the most powerful critique of Rawlsian political philosophy ever written." But what about the most powerful critiques that are not written, that cannot be written even, or since we live in an age of universal inscription, are written but not published? Should we not look for the truly powerful critiques by their effects - by what they do to the behaviour; after all, what is a professional political philosopher but an animal, an animal with instincts like any other?! Rawlsians who encounter G.A. Cohen's book have not given up their Rawlsianism. Instead a literature has flowered defending Rawls against Cohen, a spectacle of progress on a single topic. What feeble power this is. Let's assume that all political philosophers are genuinely interested in a good set of basic rules for society, at the ridiculous level of their conscious minds. Rawls addresses this interest - this is undeniable. But we seekers of powerful critiques, we searchers, we must consider why so-and-so is not a Rawlsian, and even why so-and-so is one. Undoubtedly the bulk of Rawlsians reason as follows: "I value liberty, and socialism does not give enough of this - its track record is terrible; I value greater wealth equality, or a welfare state, and minimal state capitalism does not realize this value; Rawls is the most worked-out position in-between; one has to support the most worked-out position and raise it to dominance in order for our research community to have public impact." But what of his original position thought experiment? Who is moved by it? Only the strangest of creatures would conclude, "I favour Rawls's principles because they would be chosen in the OP." Yes, a scientific economist! Now let us turn to people who are not Rawlsian. Why, for example, is Carl Knight not a Rawlsian, or Martha Nussbaum? Something powerful has moved them away from support for Rawls, something we can only dimly perceive at best, we lovers of light. These people don't ever say, "Hey guys, this Rawls guy, he seems pretty good, guys, but there's a problem guys, a big problem, guys, which is..." Or anything neatened up which corresponds to their thinking! You would have to "torture" them somewhat to get their thinking, probably. They don't approach professional communication as we free spirits do; it is something they intend to win at, or not lose. The conversation function barely exists.

In my "Davidson, Evans-Pritchard, and how I found Rose Macaulay's Told by an Idiot," I wrote that "John Rawls's curiosity levels seem low to me for a great philosopher, if he doesn't have enough problems in that league already." However, I have conceived of a challenging reply which I think it is best to share. ("You" are unlikely to think of it, I think, because you are not analytic, like me, or because...) When does a philosopher display curiosity? Here is a preliminary analysis. A philosopher displays curiosity if and only if: (i) they have a main project; (ii) a piece of information, call it "IIII," is not of use for this main project. (iii) they present information III in their philosophical work. And here is the challenging reply, based on the analysis: "The philosophers who appear to display a lot of curiosity just do not have a main project, so they do not meet condition (i). They appear to be curious because, lacking a main project, a lot of information (maybe everything) cannot be excluded by them as irrelevant."

Thomas Nagel contributed to The Cambridge Companion to John Rawls with a chapter entitled "Rawls and Liberalism." He opens his chapter with these sentences: ' “Liberalism” means different things to different people. The term is currently used in Europe by the left to castigate the right for blind faith in the value of an unfettered market economy and insufficient attention to the importance of state action in realizing the values of equality and social justice.' Here are some responses to Nagel. (A) Given Nagel's opening sentence, we are expecting some specifications of meanings. But in the second sentence he writes of how the term is currently used. Is that current use a meaning specification? The reader is left to guess. (B) Taken as a meaning specification, it does not look adequate. Nagel refers to blind faith, but why? There is a left-wing European who castigates the right-wing for valuing an unfettered market economy and insufficient attention to the importance of state action in realizing the values of equality and social justice, but they think that the right-wing valuation is based on argument and would not characterize the right-wing valuation as based on faith, as intuitively understood: faith as belief not based on argument. (I wonder if Nagel has an essay on blind faith somewhere!) (C) Also is "liberalism" a descriptive term or an evaluative term or a mixture? It sounds like an insult, as Nagel presents it in its European use but we normally think it is a label for a position or family of them, which does not in itself imply an evaluation. (D) Nagel's third sentence neatly contrasts the European use of "liberalism," directed at the right wing, with the American use, directed at the left wing: 'In the United States, on the other hand, the term is used by the right to castigate the left for unrealistic attachment to the values of social and economic equality and the too ready use of government power to pursue those ends at the cost of individual freedom and initiative.' There is a problem for his neat contrast of European left bashing right with the term "liberalism" and American right bashing left with the term, however: the right-wing European intellectual who (by any normal standard) rejects liberalism and gives voice to "common" concerns. Liberalism does not take into account the nature of human beings, which makes multiculturalism not doable, says this right wing fellow; and has no way of restricting its military interventions because of its doctrine of universal rights. (I knew a Polish administrator in law and she made the objection to multiculturalism; then I learnt that she is married to an Asian!) (E) In my "Davidson, Evans-Pritchard, and how I found Rose Macaulay's Told by an Idiot," I suggested that Rawls has a number of problems in the league of great philosophers. One such problem (which I cannot prove) is: although he has stellar figures who write secondary literature for him, they mostly don't do their work properly for him! They are probably planning to do better than him in the long run, despite how far behind they seem to the common man, sorry, I mean the common contemporary political philosopher/theorist.

I read your paper today with interest, Jinze Liu. (Doctor, professor?) RESPONSE 1: I enjoyed your claim that psychological egoism and moral realism are compatible. RESPONSE 2: there is a divide in analytic philosophy between those who think the standards of analytic philosophy are simply good academic standards (I recall reading Professor M.G.F. Martin expressing this view) and those who think that "analytic philosophy, with its standards, is a very peculiar enterprise." It seems to me that you lean towards the former view. RESPONSE 3: This response will take a while and involves two sub-responses. You identify the following as a structure you recurrently encounter in mainland Chinese philosophy papers: “[...] (Author presents their own theory). As XXX (cited scholar) states, ‘...’[...] (Author continues their argument).” (A) There is someone in analytic philosophy who will probably say, "I don't understand the structure you are trying to present," and this is not a knavish strategic move by them to frustrate you, etc. The following is a structure that the someone will probably understand: "(i) Author presents conclusion of their argument. (ii) Author cites scholar XXX as agreeing with their conclusion. (iii) Author presents their argument for their conclusion." With the structure you identify, it is obscure how the material before (presentation of theory) and the material after (continuation of argument) relate to one another. Is the theory the conclusion of the argument or is it something else? (It could be the conclusion, it could be a premise...?) (B) Also the structure you identify is intended to be problematic, but it does not look transparently problematic, given our dim understanding of it. What is the problem if an author presents their theory, quotes, and then continues their argument for it well enough? RESPONSE 4: I have quite a bit of experience with Chinese legal studies postgraduates here, mostly female, all having some interest in philosophy (how could they not, speaking with me?!), and some of them are quite good at argument. They fall somewhere in between offering strong and weak arguments, by my intuitive assessment. (I have also taught "lots" of Chinese undergraduates!) RESPONSE 5: I suspect if I engaged with the mainland Chinese philosophical community more, my position there would be identical to what it is in Western analytic philosophy! RESPONSE 6: I recommend reading Helen Beebee next on your journey in analytic philosophy. But I wonder if there is even much difference between her writing and mine from a Chinese point of view. ("A BIT!")