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861Utilitarianism versus the privileging of speechIJRDO Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research 8 (11): 12. 2022.Apparently the Western philosophical tradition has (wrongly) preferred speech over writing – so claims Jacques Derrida. In this paper, I consider whether utilitarianism involves such a preference. There are at least two arguments against the claim.
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676I draw attention to how Annie Saumont’s “You Should Have Changed at Dol” provides a solution to the paradox. With appropriate background knowledge, Saumont’s story, despite its modern form, displays various convergences with Descartes’ meditations; likewise the Bisa dance may feature convergences with traditional dance.
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445An explanation for why the Bisa do not perform a traditional dance to express their identity is all-or-nothing reasoning: “We would have to water it down for this audience and that is not a Bisa dance.”
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533This paper proposes (once again) that a controversy has been omitted from Robert Graves’s account of how the Greek myths became an established part of the British education system. I address a question from the secondary literature on Bruno Latour: why can’t we see this controversy? Two reasons are speculatively identified.
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661In his The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera describes how he was fired from his job and secretly wrote astrology columns. I register a puzzle that various readers should feel about this information, owing to the distinctive style of Kundera: how can this be kept a secret? I also propose solutions.
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499Will a surprise exam happen in the next school week? The memory skepticism solution says, “The students should expect a rational student on the penultimate evening of that week to open themselves up to the possibility that the exam may have happened already, rather than predicting that the exam will happen tomorrow.”
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429Robert Nozick declares that scanning complex wholes is not easy. Presumably few people exhibited the skill before Nozick, but I propose another explanation for why few people exhibit it than difficulty. Focusing specifically on scanning for inconsistencies, papers conveying them won’t look impressive to certain evaluators.
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524This paper presents a paradox of the concept of the right wing, because it groups together significantly different political philosophies, in terms of premises and conclusions – ones that recommend a minimal state and ones oriented towards preserving the traditions of a community. It also presents a meta-paradox: everyone has noticed this and yet it is my paradox!
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575The philosopher and builder Ludwig Wittgenstein remarks that architecture is more difficult than philosophy. He suggests an exhaustion criterion for how difficult a discipline is: a field is more difficult the more exhausting it is. I make a case against this claim. There was once a demand to prevent the Greek myths from establishing themselves in the curriculum by means of “our own rival myths.” It is difficult to compete with a renowned Greek myth, but if one does produce a rival, it may well …Read more
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505Parts of the Victorian middle class were troubled by how Victorian society was both highly evolved and contained savage parts. I propose a solution to the paradox they faced.
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480This brief paper raises a puzzle, or half-puzzle, about Flora Nwapa’s ethnic identity in light of sentences in her novel Women are Different and presents two solutions.
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542This paper responds to Thomas Kelly and Sarah McGrath’s worry that there can be evil reflective equilibrium. I propose that some of John Rawls’s restrictions on moral judgments we can enter into the procedure serve to protect against evil reflective equilibrium.
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515This paper presents a Davidsonian perspective on Derek Parfit’s disagreements with Nietzsche. I have actually gone further, too far perhaps, and tried to imitate Davidson’s attractive essayistic style.
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491This paper raises a worry that it is difficult to reconcile Adam Smith’s claims about the relationship of specialization to talent and character with his account of the origins of money. Specialization makes one stupid outside of one’s specialism yet money arises by specialists also providing what everyone wants.
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597I interpret George Eliot as objecting to John Locke in Middlemarch – more specifically, his theory of ideas – by means of her account of Dorothea’s experiences of Edward Casaubon at dinner.
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406The all-or-nothing problem, formulated by Joe Horton, presents us with a situation in which you can do nothing or save one child or save two. It is dangerous to save any, making doing nothing morally permissible, but there is no extra danger in saving two, so it seems wrong to just save one. But then doing nothing is morally better than saving one. I present a solution in response to this problematic result, which is that doing nothing is not an accurate description of a permissible option.
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447This paper examines what is said about a craze for essay writing in Rose Macauley’s 1923 essayistic novel Told by an Idiot, comparing the material with Milan Kundera on graphomania. In the appendix, I note a passage on crowds which is reminiscent of the widely read European author.
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786Are John Rawls’s most noticeable methodological contributions, reflective equilibrium and the original position, consistent with each other? I draw attention to a worry that they stand in inconsistent relationships to the claim that ought implies can: it can only be the case that we ought to do something if we can do it.
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652This is a one page handout presenting some objections A.R. Radcliffe-Brown makes to Frazer on rites and Frazer's evolutionism.
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694This is a one page handout, which specifies four uses of the social organism analogy in British structural-functionalist anthropology and contrasts these uses with uses in analytic political philosophy.
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489Joseph Raz claims that the fundamental principles of morality and politics are satiable: there is a point at which one has fulfilled them. I argue that Raz cannot consistently endorse this claim, given his approach to saving lives.
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388Milan Kundera is now perhaps the greatest living philosopher, but he suffers from logical problems. One might propose that since he is a person who works primarily in the medium of fiction, one should not be too harsh on him, rather find ways to make him more logical. The result may be rather chaste.
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525This paper considers a paradox which the historian of anthropology George Stocking draws attention to: from the point of view of parts of the Victorian middle class, Victorian society was highly evolved yet also contained savage components. I clarify the paradox and propose a solution.
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431I compare Rosamond’s relationship with her husband in Middlemarch with Rosamond’s marital relationship in L.A.G. Strong’s short story “The Seal.” I interpret the latter fiction as addressing the unpleasant question: what sort of decent man can suppress Rosamond?
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368Propositions, the paradox of analysis, and Milan Kundera's author's noteIjrdo-Journal of Educational Research 11 (1): 1. 2025.I present a literary solution to the paradox of analysis in light of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and also raise a question of whether sentences across languages are expressing the same proposition, owing to differences in informativeness.
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524Regarding the argument by Marilyn Strathern which Victoria Loblay focuses on, I present two differences between my response and Loblay’s response. Also I raise a concern about Loblay’s response.
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560Which moral judgments should one pay attention to in building a moral philosophy? Thomas Kelly and Sarah McGrath object to John Rawls’s suggestion to not rely on judgments heavily bound up with one’s own interests. I propose a solution in response to the objection.
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439This paper presents a puzzle that occurred to me while reading Milan Kundera defining graphomania: a mania for writing books for an unknown public. I also present a solution.
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484Max Gluckman introduces us to if-I-were-a-horse arguments, but what is wrong with them? In this paper, I draw attention to an objection built-in to the terminology.
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742This is a one-page handout presenting some objections nationalists might or do make to John Rawls's original position method.
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