Seven years ago, in 2015, I did a deep dive into the rules governing the allocation of Republican Party convention delegates in the different states, and demonstrated on this blog that if Donald Trump could get a steady 30 – 35% of the voters in the various primaries, he would win enough delegates to secure the nomination even without the so-called “superdelegates” allocated by Republican Party rules. I am not aware that any of the states have made significant changes to their rules, which essentially gives the winner of a primary all or most of the delegates. It is my impression, although only that, that Trump can reasonably expect to command at least 1/3 of the delegates in the upcoming primaries for the 2024 election. If, as seems likely, as many as a dozen candidates announce their candidacy, then unless Ron DeSantis can actually secure more than half of the delegates not committed to Trump in the early primaries, Trump will start to build up what will appear to be an unbeatable lead in delegate commitments. The anti-Trump forces in the Republican Party could forestall such an event by all combining behind a single non-Trump candidate, but we know that will not happen.
By the way, being in jail is not an obstacle to running for
president. Just ask Eugene Victor Debs, five-time nominee of the Socialist
party in the first part of the 20th century, who ran for president
the fifth time in 1920 while in jail and got 3 million votes.
By the way, being in jail is not an obstacle to running for president. Just ask Eugene Victor Debs, five-time nominee of the Socialist party in the first part of the 20th century, who ran for president the fifth time in 1920 while in jail and got 3 million votes. Also, don't overlook Lyndon Larouche's less successful 1992 campaign for President (only 26K votes from a much larger electorate).
ReplyDelete"...Trump will start to build up what will appear to be an unbeatable lead in delegate commitments."
ReplyDeleteAnd that is a bad thing? So far Trump is 1 - 3 and the one is the result of a combination of some unlikely to repeat circumstances (media greed and stupidity plus a hatred of the Clintons, an unfortunate spousal choice, and Comey, (it seems the Russian interference will be an ongoing constant).
There is no viable alternative to Trump in the Republican Party that would be good for the values most of us seem to share.
Trump losing the nomination and splitting the Rethugs could happen or not.
Trump winning the nomination and splitting the Rethugs ditto.
Etc.
Paul Ryan in current interviews has stated that he opposes Trump because he wants to win (recall that for Ryan "winning" means being able to take away folks pensions and health care while making the already wealthy wealthier).
All viable alternatives to Trump in the Republican Party would be as bad or worse. The current most likely, Desantis, is a smarter, more dangerous Trump.
BTW, unless one trusts Sinema, Democratic control of the Senate isn't entirely wrapped up and 51 is necessary for committee control. Maybe send some love to Warnock.
Trump isn't going to prison.
Not even clear at this pt that T is going to be indicted. Obvs, appt of special counsel does not guarantee that.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLFC,
You are correct--the naming of a special prosecutor does not guarantee that Trump will be indicted, but it is a strong--I think very strong--indicator that he will be. If Garland thought there was no prosecutable case (with its need to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt) he would have closed the case himself. Not even Trump would question that decision. It is only because Garland thinks there is a prosecutable case that he named a prosecutor.
I agree with David.
ReplyDeleteWell, Amy Schneider won the Tournament of Champions tonight, which included a series of question on Hegel. Amy correctly answered that Hegel named one of his sons using the first name of this predecessor German philosopher, although not named after him. Who is Immanuel Kant?
Fortunately, she did not make the same mistake she made last Friday. She wagered $13,000.00 “on the Final Jeopardy question, which she correctly answered with, “Her American Cousin”: The January 12, 1864 Washington Evening Star reported on a performance of this “dashing comedy” to “a full and delighted house”
Andrew He came in second; and Prof. Buttrey came in third.
David
ReplyDeleteBased on some things I've heard, I have a somewhat different take.
The main reason Garland named a special counsel now is that T announced he's running in 2024. Garland wanted to avoid as much as possible the appearance of a political motive (or anything related) behind the ongoing investigations. So he's bringing in Smith to complete the ongoing investigations. Smith may recommend an indictment in one investigation or the other, but he may not. Recall that Mueller, in the Russia-related probe where indictment of a sitting president was not on the table, nonetheless basically found that there wasn't enough to indict T on anyway. Here the evidence is considerably stronger but might still in the end be deemed not a winnable case. I don't know. I hope you and Marc are right.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteThere is an idea among most commenters in this blog that Trump is especially bad, worse than DeSantis and other Republicans because he is more irrational, less of a team player, more of a gangster, more willing to break all the rules to get what he wants, under the influence of real-life dictators like Putin, etc.
DeSantis, being more pragmatic, would be less likely to carry out ultra rightwing radical measures which would cause the economy to crash and thus, piss off Wall St. while Trump cares only about Trump and does not give a fuck about Wall St or anyone else but himself.
I don't follow U.S. politics closely enough to opine one way or another, but it appears to me that you raise an interesting issue that would be worth more debate.
No one has noted this, but perhaps it’s worth mentioning that today is the 59th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. I was 15 and a high school sophomore in Latin class and got the news over the school’s intercom, probably as part of the daily afternoon school announcements. I wasn’t fond of Kennedy then (I thought that he was too slick), and I haven’t much warmed to him as the years have gone by. But I suspect that most of us who were in secondary school at that time remember where we were when we got the news. I wondered then how we were supposed to beat the Russians when we couldn’t protect the president from some nut with a rifle. I don’t know that our foreign policy—especially with respect to Vietnam—would have been much different in an extended Kennedy term than it turned out to be with Johnson, since LBJ inherited a lot of Kennedy’s senior advisors.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLFC,
I think a difference between the current situation and the Mueller investigation is that Mueller and his team started essentially from scratch. With Trump now, DOJ has been investigating both January 6 and the Florida documents for a long time. Unlike Mueller, Smith will have to get up to date with an investigation what's well underway, if not finished.
@ David
ReplyDeletePoint noted.
@ Fritz P.
Whether Vietnam policy would have been the same had Kennedy lived has been the subject of much debate. Some have argued vigorously that JFK would not have escalated in the way Johnson did, and there is some documentary evidence to support that position, in particular one memo the precise details of which I've forgotten. However, the evidence is not conclusive.
P.s. there are many good historians working in this area. One is Frederik Logevall, who has published both on the Vietnam War and most recently the first volume of a JFK biography. Offhand I'm not sure exactly what Logevall says on the matter at hand, nor would he necessarily be "right" since this is, as I've already mentioned, a very contested question.
ReplyDeletes.w., I assume Trump has worn out his welcome amongst most folks and would be easier to beat (three out of four, etc.). DeSantis would benefit from the same sort of lame MSM coverage that gave us Trump in 2016. That you have classified him as "pragmatic," based I assume on what you have gleaned from whatever media sources you use, makes my point. Both understand the kayfabe that appeals to a certain type of voter.
ReplyDeleteBoth would be terrible. Trump has learned what DeSantis already knows - google "Schedule F." DeSantis used the power of the state to bully a private corporation - so much for "free enterprise." DeSantis has attacked academic freedom at the university level and use anti-LGBTQ propaganda to attack K - 12 education. He used state funds to take Venezuelan migrants from Texas and fly them to Massachusetts as a political stunt. He created and controls a separate police force that he used to intimidate Black voters. His appointed state Surgeon General is an anti-vax crank. He used state police to intimidate a state official over Covid numbers early in the pandemic. His policies created a serious number of excess deaths.
Smarter isn't always better.
Today in antisemitism:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiLZHCvXkAUT7fZ?format=jpg&name=medium
DP, good point. Smith is now overseeing the Mar-A-Lago case and his team was in the Eleventh Circuit doing legal things today.
ReplyDeletes.w., a possible solution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiTM2HQ0g98
Fritz,
ReplyDeleteYou and I are the same age. I was also in high school, in New Jersey, when the news was reported of President Kennedy’s assassination. That day is forever etched in my memory, and I recall it every year. We were sent home, and I walked home with my high school history teacher, who lived on the same block as my family. She was crying hysterically. That Friday evening I took the train from Penn Station in Newark to New Brunswick, to spend the weekend with my older brother, who was attending Rutgers. There was a pall over the train, as the passengers sat in mournful silence.
Earlier this week, I saw a discussion on TV about the Cuban missile crisis and Pres. Kennedy’s handling of it. One of the commentators was Richard Haass, former Director of the Department of Planning at the Dept. of State. The other commentator was a history professor whose name I cannot recall. Both agreed that Kennedy’s firm confrontation with Kruschev is what defused the situation, an unpopular opinion with some who comment on this blog. They asserted that Kruschev was genuinely concerned that Kennedy was not bluffing, which, along with the agreement to remove the Atlas missiles from Turkey, resulted in the removal of the missiles from Cuba. Haass maintained that Pres. Biden has to be equally firm with Putin.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteThanks. I had to google "kayfabe".
aaall,
ReplyDeleteYes, depicting Pres. Zelensky with an oversize nose – definitely anti-Semitic.
Over the weekend, the FBI and NY police apprehended two individuals at Penn Station carrying a cache of weapons intended to use in attacks on Jews in N.Y.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/19/us/nyc-jewish-threat-community-arrest
My impression is that it was not only Kennedy's "firmness," but also his refusal to be rushed into the sort of military action that certain advisers urged, opting instead for a naval blockade, that was v. important here.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the SAC and DAC commanders unilaterally setting their commands at DEFCON 2 both freaked the Soviets and allowed Kennedy to be the good cop. We also shouldn't forget the Soviet XO Vasily Arkhipov who prevented his submarine firing off a nuclear torpedo during the blockade.
ReplyDeleteThe facts which are coming to light about Anderson Lee Aldrich and his hostile relationship with his mother are uncannily similar to Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Arthur Fleck in the movie Joker. The combustible combination of mentally ill people and the easy access to firearms in this country is unavoidable and the tragic events which occurred in Colorado Springs this past week-end are not going to end. How should the legal system treat Mr. Aldrich?
ReplyDeletePost-script:
ReplyDeleteWhy unavoidable? Because law enforcement cannot possibly predict what members of our society who display signs of mental illness may constitutionally be pre-empted from obtaining firearms and acting out their psychoses on their neighbors. I suppose it is possible that red flag laws may minimally diminish such interactions, but eliminate them all, not humanly possible. As the Second Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, these tragedies are going to continue to occur over and over, leaving grieving parents, siblings and friends in their wake.
2nd Post-script:
ReplyDeleteI just want to make a comment about the execrable nature of the journalistic coverage of the mass shooting at the Club Q nightclub and the motives of the shooter. They all start out their report stating something like, we do not know for certain the motive of the shooter, and whether it was a hate crime - giving sanctimonious lip-service to journalistic integrity – and then proceed to state that the incident appears, in all likelihood, to have been a hate crime. All they know is that the assailant entered an LGBQT nightclub with multiple firearms and indiscriminately opened fire on the patrons. Do those data points necessarily, or even probably, point to a hate crime? It appears based on what we now know that the shooter is severely mentally ill. Can a mentally ill person who suffers from psychoses even form an emotion of hatred? Has anyone considered the possibility that Mr. Aldrich is himself gay, and was perhaps taking out his self-hatred on members of the LGBTQ community? Or perhaps he had recently been rebuffed by a member of the LGBTQ community and retaliated? Is it possible that it was a hate crime? Of course it is. But is it probable, based on what we know? The journalists all pretend to be objective, and then jump to their preconceptions that it must have been, in all likelihood, a hate crime by a homophobic maniac.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you expect from the mainstream media?
It's suitably dumbed down to appeal to as many sectors of the population as possible and so as not to offend any possible commercial sponsors. The journalists are not supposed to say anything controversial (for their target audience) and above all, not to say anything heretical.
I don't watch U.S. media at all, but if in a small country like Chile there are several intelligent alternative media sources in Youtube, I'm sure that you'll find many which cover U.S. news intelligently and courageously.
Marc
ReplyDeleteI haven't closely followed the coverage about Aldrich, but a few things.
To get the obvious out of the way, it's apparently not clear yet whether this was a hate crime or not -- unlike the Orlando Fla. shooting at the Pulse nightclub, where the evidence was that it had hate as one important motive. Second, anyone who does something like this has to be considered mentally unbalanced, whether or not they meet the clinical definition of mental illness.
Lastly, I object somewhat to the tone of your speculations in the comment at 6:22 a.m. If someone walked into a straight club and started shooting people, would you suggest that the shooter perhaps had made a social or romantic advance and been "rebuffed" by a "member" of the "heterosexual community"? If not, then I don't think you should speculate here that Aldrich might have been "rebuffed" by a "member of the LGBTQ community". Ordinarily, someone, whether straight or gay, who asks someone for a date and gets "rebuffed" does not respond by getting multiple weapons, walking into a club and killing people. I find the notion that the shooter here is gay, while not completely impossible, to be very implausible.
P.s. As the coverage has pointed out, not everyone in the club that night was gay (the Army veteran who confronted and "took down" the shooter was not, as it happens; he was there with his wife and daughter and daughter's boyfriend).
ReplyDeleteLFC,
ReplyDeleteAs you are probably aware, there is evidence that homophobia is stronger among closet gays.
Studies have been done measuring the response to gay pornography and those with homophobic ideas get more arosed than those without them. Obviously, studies done with males who declare themselves to not to be gay.
Sources? Are the "studies" any good?
Deletes.w.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I was not aware of those studies.
Second, I reject your definitions. A "closeted" gay person is a self-consciously gay person who has not "come out." It's not a male with homophobic ideas who gets aroused by gay pornography. As anyone acquainted with the Kinsey scale knows, sexuality is complicated and not everyone who has a response to gay pornography is gay; by the same token, not every gay person will find "gay pornography" appealing.
I have a ton of things to do today so this will be my last comment for some time.
LFC,
ReplyDeleteMy point was that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Mr. Aldrich is himself gay and was engaged in a personal vendetta of some sort, rather than a hate crime against the LGBGTQ community. This possibility is real, and therefore no more a matter of speculation than the inference that the shooter was motivated by hatred of the LBGTQ community, which is what the media are portraying it as. As for self-hating homosexuals, the classic example was Roy Cohn, who was a closet homosexual who routinely engaged in homophobic rants.
here's one of the studies
ReplyDeletehttps://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u47/Henry_et_al.pdf
On the other hand:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1595519454900805649
Even speculation within the bounds of possibility--and who is going to determine what tese bounds are?--is still mere speculation. One might as well take it as a license to speculate about the relationship between a politician's spouse and the person who wielded a hammer.
ReplyDeleteWhy not speculate?
ReplyDeletePeople spend a lot of time speculating about Trump's motives or those of DeSantis or those of Elon Musk. Is there some kind of new rule that you're allowed to speculate about the motives of powerful bad guys but not those of bad guys who are losers and/or a bit crazy?
Speculating about the motives of others, otherwise known as gossip, is a fun tradition and a lot more entertaining than most traditions.
moreover, the gossip causes tempers to calm. Even the most abstruse theory has a function. The whispering and murmuring works for events of collective effect like the white blood cells do for an injury.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure there can be a motive, as one usually understands the word "motive," for this kind of act -- or if there is a motive, it's one that's filtered through an enormously twisted and dysfunctional consciousness, so dysfunctional that the word "motive" begins to lose meaning.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone premeditates the killing of a single person, the idea of motive often makes sense, as in, for example, a so-called crime of passion (say, a betrayed or jilted lover killing his/her perceived betrayer: the motive there is anger and revenge) or a thief killing his accomplice so he can have all the spoils of the theft for himself (the motive there being greed).
But can there be a motive, in any real sense of that word, for walking into a club, or a school, or a grocery store, and starting to fire at random? (Even if this case should be determined to be a hate crime, I'm not sure that hate of a whole group of people is a motive as the word is typically understood -- though it may be such; I'm not sure.)
LFC,
ReplyDeleteAgreed that someone who walks into a club and begins to fire at random may not have a conscious deliberate motive in the sense that someone who murders their rich uncle in order to inherit his penthouse on Fifth Avenue does.
However, I'm Freudian enough (or psychoanalytical enough) to believe that even if the shooter heard a voice commanding him or acted in a "blind rage", there is some kind of unconscious motive which is "behind" his murderous actions. It's not just random neurons firing in the brain, so to speak.
Our speculation here is just an amateurish attempt to understand those motives, be they conscious or unconscious. Probably most of us have read a little Freud or at least listened to Professor Wolff's talks on Freud. In my case I've read as much psychology as I've read, say, history, maybe more.
There was a fascinating and informative interview on PBS News tonight with Andrew Weiss, the author of a new book about Putin titled, “Accidental Czar.” Weiss spoke about the trauma which WWII caused in Putin’s family – his older brother was killed; his mother was being taken to be buried when she suddenly came to life. Putin yearned to become a KGB agent as a teenager. He finally got his wish and was being considered for special training as a KGB agent when he lost his temper and go into a fight on a train and was injured. He was then exiled to East Germany. Boris Yeltsin selected him to provide security for the Yeltsin family, thinking Putin was a “nobody.” Putin manipulated that role to gain power. Weiss also said that Putin is historically illiterate, hence his delusion that Ukraine and Russia are one and the same. Asked if Putin is rational, Weiss was noncommittal, essentially saying no one knows. He related a story about Putin cornering a rat in his neighborhood when he was growing up, and when the rat was cornered, it turned on Putin and jumped on him. Weiss intimated that if Putin is cornered, he may react like that rat.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletehttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiLZHCvXkAUT7fZ?format=jpg&name=medium
Is that caricature antisemitic?
Frankly I don't particularly care. Let me spell it out for you: it is irrelevant.
Maybe it is antisemitic. As a matter of fact, let me concede it is, for the sake of the argument.
Does this antisemitism negate that Zelensky fucked up big time? That's the main point of that caricature. Does that antisemitism negate that Zelensky could have ignited a world war where millions-if not billions-of people could die?
While the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, was saying that “we do not have any conclusive evidence at the moment as to who launched this missile … this is all still under investigation at the moment”, Zelensky was claiming without a shred of evidence that the missiles were Russian.
While the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was calling for restrain from the Polish populace (“I call on all Poles to remain calm around this tragedy. Let’s be prudent, let’s not let ourselves be manipulated. We need to be ready to face fake news, propaganda efforts”) Zelensky was stoking panic, claiming this was a deliberate attack.
What part of the sentence "Zelensky is an irresponsible fearmonger" you do not understand? Aren't you the intellectual elite of America?
I really don't know what's more scandalous, Zelenky's criminal irresponsibility or your spectacular obtuseness.
BL Zebub,
ReplyDeleteFour points:
1. Even if the rocket which landed in Poland was launched by Ukraine, it was an accident which occurred when Ukraine was trying to deflect the hundreds of rockets which Russia was launching into Ukraine. It is Russia which is ultimately responsible for the need of Ukraine to defend itself against the brutal assault by Russia on Ukraine’s civilian population.
2. Seeking to bolster one’s weak argument with anti-Semitic remarks is not a good thing.
3. Seeking to bolster one’s weak argument with ad hominem remarks, like calling your adversary “obtuse,” is not a good thing.
4. Your pseudonym suits you. (This animadversion is not made to boost a weak argument; it is to point out the obvious and buttress a strong argument.)
Baal Zebubba,
ReplyDeleteLook at this from a psyops point of view. In war, sometimes propaganda is not meant to apparently or intentionally be _just_ racist, whether antisemitic, or anti Muslim, etc., but to inflame emotions. When a group of people are acting emotionally, they are inclined to be irrational and chaotic, without cohesion, thus rendering them less effective in either a defensive or offensive posture.
That Weiss interview on NewsHour was just as facinating for what it left out. E.g., the fact that the Yeltsin gang, which seemingly everyone knew was supported, indeed preserved in power, by American electoral intervention, was widely resented by many Russians who viewed that gang as not just corrupt but also very bad for their contry’s standing in the world—i.e., they had made Russians feel less secure. Putin got support from many Russians for putting the kleptocratic oligarchs in their place (including in jail) and recovering some of Russia’s standing.
ReplyDeleteIt was also a fascinating piece in that it was so reminiscent of some of the old style Cold War Kremlinology—so much speculation based on rumor and very thin evidence and goodness knows how many fake facts.
Lastly, unless it’s the fact that Weiss’s book is done comic book style—which will undoubtedly appeal to those who can’t read—I’d be interested to know whether it adds anything at all to what Fiona Hill, the darling of the impeachment hearings, was writing about Putin some years ago.
It seems to me, Weiss is just trying to cash in on the latest craze.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWe're back in the Cold War, back in 1962, which reminds me of a great song, Back in the USSR. If you look closely, you'll see Mr. Putin not enjoying himself much in the crowd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JbLsYoL3ug
Anonymous @11:17 a.m.
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched the Weiss interview (though I may do so) but it's worth noting that Weiss works for a think tank, I believe, the Council on Foreign Relations iirc. No students and typically no clients -- so a significant part of his job is to write articles and books. Not surprising that he should address the "latest craze" as you put it, whether he adds much to previous treatments of Putin or not.
"Aren't you the intellectual elite of America?"
ReplyDeleteInteresting phrasing, товарищ. Absent Russia's aggression there would have been no incident. Had Ukraine been supplied with modern air defense systems there would have been no incident.
Marc, Putin appears to have started criming as a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg - corruption, bodies here and there, etc. He chose to hang a picture of Peter the Great in his office instead of the usual current higher up. Total thug - Mack the Knife plus the Peter Principle.
s.w., picture/thousand words. A bigger man would have made a different, better world.
University of Michigan, the underdog, just trounced Ohio State 45 to 23! They are going on to play Georgia State for the national championship. Go Blue!
ReplyDeleteA friendly correction, Marc, from another rabid Wolverine fan:
ReplyDeleteActually... it is the University of Georgia that U of M will probably play for the national championship.
But first they have to win the BIG (aka Big Ten) championship game and then whoever is seeded below them in the first national playoff round (USC? Alabama?)
Go Blue!
David
I make a point of it only because it is maddening when people call the U of M "Michigan State".
ReplyDeleteYou're correct David, University of Georgia, not Georgia Stated.
ReplyDeleteI was not sure you would be watching, being a sophisticated Professor of Philosophy and all.
This sophisticated professor (and all) was very frustrated that the game was not available in Quebec City, and had to rest satisfied with updates from the Detroit News.
ReplyDeleteThat's unfortunate. You missed a great game. U of M was expected to lose, with Blake Corum injured. But JJ McCarthy, U of M's quarterback, stepped up in the 2nd half and performed brilliantly, along with Calvin Johnson. The Ohio team fell apart. This is the first U of M victory at Columbus in 22 years.
ReplyDeleteHate to disillusion BL Zebub, but "the intellectual elite of America" has more important things to do than comment on this blog -- no disrespect to my fellow commenters intended.
ReplyDeleteLFC,
ReplyDeleteWho, then, constitutes the intellectual elite of America?
I'm not claiming to be a member myself. However, yesterday I listened to two long interviews with Brian Leiter, and he is very bright, intellectually creative, and erudite. I'd nominate him for membership.
I don't have any other candidates for the moment.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteOf course you are not a member of the intellectual elite of America. You don’t live in America. You live in Chile. You could, perhaps, qualify as a member of the intellectual elite of the Americas, or of Chile, but of America, not physically possible.
This reminds me of a put-down that Golda Meir would make to someone who pretended to reject a compliment. She would say, “Don’t be so modest. You’re not that smart.”
Correction:
ReplyDeleteI got the quote wrong. She was known to say, “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.”
Marc,
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw your email in my inbox, I imagined that you were going to nominate your own candidate for the intellectual elite of America or maybe disagree with my nomination of
Brian Leiter. I was looking forward with pleasure to seeing your candidate or even to your reasons for not accepting mine.
I'd be interested in hearing yours or anyone else's candidates to the intellectual elite.
Noam Chomsky is a safe nominee.
ReplyDeletes. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, I would not limit my nominees to America, or to the Americas, but to the world. And frankly, there are too many for me to name. By “intellectual elite,” I would mean those who are educated, including self-educated, who are intellectually curious and who read in order to satisfy their curiosity. They are elite not because they are superior to any one else, but because they are distinct from those who are not intellectually curious. Being a member of the intellectually elite does not mean that they have all the answers, or even if the answers they offer are correct, but at least they think about what the answers might be. Unlike LFC, I would include himself, and you and all those who read this blog and who comment on this blog, whether I agree with them or not, as members of the intellectual elite – with the exception of those who only comment in order to engage in insults. And, of course, there are many who neither read nor comment on this blog who are among the intellectual elite, too numerous to be named.
I recently saw a reference to a short story titled “My Quarrel With Hersh Rasyner.” The story was originally in Yiddish and is included in a collection of Yiddish stories edited by Irving Howe. The description sparked my curiosity, so I Googled it, and found an English version on the internet and have been reading it. It is a debate between a religious Jew and a secular Jew, both of whom have survived the Holocaust, regarding which of them has the more accurate view of the world and how to live. At one point, the religious Jew says:
“Chaim, you seem to have forgotten what you learned at Novaredok, so I’ll remind you. In His great love for mankind, the Almighty has endowed us with reason. If our sages of blessed memory tell us that we can learn from the animals, surely we can learn from reason as well. And we know that the elders of Athens erected systems of morality according to pure reason. They had many disciples, each with his own school.
“But the question hasn’t changed. Did they really live as they thought, or did their system remain only a system? You must understand once and for all that when his reason is calm and pure, a man doesn’t know what he’s likely to do when his dark desire overtakes him. A man admires his own wisdom and is proud of his knowledge, but as soon as a little desire begins to stir in him he forgets everything else. Reason is like a dog on a leash who follows sedately in his master’s footsteps – until he sees a bitch. With us it’s a basic principle that false ideas come from bad qualities. Any man can rationalize whatever he wants to do. Is it true that only a little while ago he was saying the opposite of what he is now saying? He’ll tell you he was wrong then. And if he lets you prove to him that he wasn’t wrong then, he’ll shrug and say, ‘When I want to do something, I can’t be an Aristotle.’ As soon as his desire is sated, his reason revives and he’s sorry for what he did. As soon as he feels desire beginning to stir once more, he forgets his reason again. It’s as though he were in a swamp; when he pulls one foot out, the other sinks in. There is delicacy in his character, he has a feeling for beauty, he expresses his exalted thoughts in measured words, and there is no flaw in him; then he sees a female ankle and his reason is swallowed up. If a man has no God, why should he listen to the philosopher who tells him to be good? The philosopher himself is cold and gloomy and empty. He is like a man who wants to celebrate a marriage with himself.”
I would have a narrower definition of "the intellectual elite of America" than Marc does. The phrase is as much a sociological designation as a "substantive" one. Actually, I'm not sure anyone uses the phrase much.
ReplyDeleteAs to who's in it, I'm not *exactly* sure, but for a first cut you could look at the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. That would leave some people out, for sure, but would probably be a good first approximation.
Leiter, by virtue of his chair at U Chicago, is probably in it. His colleague Martha Nussbaum is in it without any question.
"It" in the last paragraph refers to "the intellectual elite," not nec the AAAS, though I'm sure Nussbaum is a member of the latter. (Chomsky ditto, no doubt.)
ReplyDeleteIn a prior thread I indicated that I am challenging the constitutionality of the Michigan Court of Claims Act, which applies whenever a Michigan citizen sues the State of Michigan, or any of its sub-divisions, e.g., the Dept. of Transportation, the University of Michigan, Michigan State U., etc. Any such lawsuit must be filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, which is distinguished by two features: (1) the plaintiff is not entitled to a jury trial; (2) all of the judges on the Court of Claims (COC) are also judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals, to which the party which loses in the COC must appeal in order to revers the COC decision. As a consequence, all of the judges who sit on the appellate panel (which the statute precludes the COC judge to sit on) are colleagues of the COC judge and at the same status level. I maintain that both features are unconstitutional: (1) violates the Equal Protection Clause; and (2) violates Due Process, because (2) necessarily involves the appearance of bias in favor of the COC judge’s decision, even if there is no evidence of actual bias.
ReplyDeleteThe Defendants (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, whom I voted for in the recent election) have argued in response, represented by the office of the Michigan Atty. General, that my argument is specious because there are numerous cases in which one of the judges on the three-judge appellate panel files a dissent, demonstrating that judicial comradery (this is a very difficult word to spell – I misspelled it five times) does not inhibit dissent. I thought about this and came up with the following retort: This argument is spurious. The real question is, in how many of those cases in which there is a dissent does the case involve an appeal from the Court of Claims, in which the majority is affirming the decision of the Court of Claims judge. The fact that the majority, even with the dissenting judge, still affirmed the decision of the Court of Claims judge – who is also a Court of Appeals judge and therefore a colleague of the two judges who voted to affirm – implicates systemic bias in the statute. Moreover, while there are instances in which an appellate judge will dissent from her colleagues on the Court of Appeals, the appearance of bias is a systemic problem with the structure of the statute itself which occurs in virtually every appeal from the Court of Claims to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Then I thought, how can I prove this? Walla. By simply comparing the results in appeals from the COC to the Court of Appeals before and after the statute was enacted, in 2013. (Before the statute, all of the judges who sat on the COC were circuit court judges, who are one step below Court of Appeals judges.) Using my legal search engine, I took a sample of decision before and after the change was enacted and found the following: Although the sample is necessarily small, I think the results are informative. Before the change, the Court of Appeals reversed the COC decision which was adverse to the plaintiff in 6 cases. It affirmed COC decisions in favor of the plaintiffs in 2 cases. In all other decisions, it affirmed decisions unfavorable to the plaintiff. After the statute was amended, I found no decisions reversing a decision which was adverse to the plaintiff; 10 decisions affirming adverse decisions, and 2 decisions affirming a decision which was favorable to the plaintiff. I believe these results are statistically significant and strongly implicates the disparity as attributable to where the COC sits, from the Circuit Court to the Michigan Court of Appeals, as the decisive factor in the difference. This evidence supports the conclusion that the bias in favor of the State resulting from the appointment of COC judges from the Michigan Court of Appeals is not just a matter of appearance, but is real and actual, and therefore violates the Due Process Clause.
What do you think?
I should have closed with, "What do you, among the intellectual elite, think?"
ReplyDeleteI agree with much that Marc says above. Some of the most impressive and creative thinkers I've known have not been university professors: I'd name off-hand two of my high school teachers and a political activist.
ReplyDeleteI named Leiter not because he has a tenured position at the University of Chicago, but because I find his thought to be liberating, intellectually courageous and at the same time intellectually rigorous.
I've read a bit of Martha Nussbaum and she's too "good" a person and too conventional for my tastes.
In one Leiter interview, asked a tough question, Leiter responds, "I'll bite that bullet and in fact, I've never met a bullet that I wouldn't bite". I like that questioning and courageous quality about him.
s.w.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have read much Martha Nussbaum if you think she's "conventional."
As is sometimes the case here, am a bit sorry I raised the question. Maybe we shd drop it.
P.s. I have a friend from college who became a historian whom I would put in the intellectual elite probably -- the fact that I'm mentioned in the acknowledgments in three of his books does not of course influence my judgment in the least. ;)
ReplyDeleteI've been pondering the phrase 'intellectual elite' for the past few seconds. Perhaps because of its closeness to the phrase 'power elite', which I associate with C. Wright Mills, it seems vaguely threatening. The philosopher Bernard Williams once wrote that among the characteristics of a great philosopher were "intellectual power and depth; a grasp of the sciences; a sense of the political, and of human destructiveness as well as creativity; a broad range and a fertile imagination; an unwillingness to settle for the superficially reassuring; and in an unusually lucky case, the gifts of a great writer," to which I would add a sense of the arts. Perhaps someone who fulfills most of those requirements is a non-threatening genuine member of the intellectual elite. Williams was himself a member on any account; I've never seen such a clear case of someone who was so obviously the smartest person in a room filled with smart people. By that criterion, my personal experience offers only one living candidate, the Israeli philosopher Tzachi Zamir, who I witnessed in action at a conference demolishing objections with alarming ease. Andreas Malm and Martin Hägglund also come to mind, and suggest that there was something remarkable in the waters of Sweden in the late 1970s. Some might think that Brian Leiter's taste in music, along with his recent silly blog campaigns against David Graeber and Bob Dylan, disqualify him from inclusion at the highest echelon; I prefer to think that he does this only so that I don't always agree with him. Along with the obvious candidates Chomsky, Nussbaum, and Raymond Geuss, and now that Graeber is dead, the only living American who comes to mind is Michael Tomasello.
ReplyDeleteJohn Rapko,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Leiter's campaign against Dylan. After all, isn't it Nietzsche who says that the artist is a law unto him or herself, that in order to become Beethoven, Beethoven had to throw out "normal" rules of being a nice person?
Given that and given that Leiter is a Nietzsche fan (as am I), who cares if Dylan is an unpleasant person? Visions of Johanna, Tangled Up in Blue and Like a Rolling Stones more than outweigh the fact that he never smiles at fans.
LFC,
ReplyDeleteI've read several articles and one book by Nussbaum and watched several interviews with her in Youtube. I see where she's coming from, as they used to say.
I'd say that we draw the line about what is conventional and non-conventional at a different point along the spectrum.
For Dylan fans only.
ReplyDeleteHere's My Back Pages from the 30rd Anniversary concert.
On the stage you'll see George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Petty and other rock stars and they look like rock stars: tall, good-looking, with the right moves, they dance around the stage as they sing.
Then a little guy appears. He doesn't dance around the stage. He doesn't smile. His voice is funny. From his look he could be a taxi driver or a clerk at a liquor store. He's Bob Dylan and all these glamorous alpha male rock kings are paying tribute to him and singing his song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEoZfu-XNZc
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteThank you for that clip.
Have no idea what Brian Leiter’s gripe is with Dylan. He doesn’t smile enough? Did James Joyce, T. S. Elliot, or Joseph Conrad smile a lot?
I saw Dylan in concert two years ago in Ann Arbor. He sang most of his new stuff, some of his old stuff, one song after the other. No political talk; no social chit-chat. At the end of the concert – which lasted over 2 hours – he stood in front of the audience, his hands clasped in front of his waist, looked out at the audience, bowed, and then walked off.
One of my favorite Dylan songs, among many, is his ballad To Ramona, which does not get much play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWhl-6jyyfo
John Rapko @12:39 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYour comment might be taken to suggest that membership in a putative "American intellectual elite" is limited to philosophers, which, of course, is not the case. (I think this will be my last comment here today.)
Marc,
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Here's the Leiter reference to Dylan.
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2022/11/bob-dylan-is-apparently-a-very-unpleasant-person.html
Agreed that Prof. Leiter's taste in music disqualifies him - I believe he said he dislikes metal. ;)
ReplyDeleteCompletely joking, of course. (For one thing, I frequently find it embarrassing to enjoy metal. But that's mostly my own insecurity speaking - I sense how laughable and abrasive it is to fans of more "dignified" music, and have a hard time compartmentalizing it as the "audio equivalent of a horror film" or whatever.)
Anyway, I'm not really sure what place a sense of the arts would have in intellectual eliteness. A sense of the arts is not a demerit, obviously, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that Kant, despite having produced classics in philosophical aesthetics, was himself unusually indifferent to the arts. Maybe the lesson is that brilliance can, and often does, "get away with" certain deficiencies, even gross deficiencies, in relation to some specific aspects or applications of intelligence. (Surely you all have tons of examples of the very bright person who strangely lacks common sense for e.g. certain practical or especially social activities.)
On another note, a professor of mine once had an unforgettable response when my classmates remarked how "brilliant" they had found the guest lecturer. "Eh, more like 'well-trained.'"
I added 'sense of the arts' to Williams's list because of the basic-ness and ubiquity of the arts in human life. Having no sense of the arts whatsoever suggests an impoverished, indeed mutilated, sense of human life, and so might be thought to disqualify someone from 'greatness'. On the other hand, the list is not meant to suggest that a great philosopher (or a member of an intellectual elite) possesses every characteristic to a high degree; no one thinks of Kant as a great writer. But even Kant seems to have been a fan of the poetry of Frederick the Great.--To my mind the most puzzling potential criterion is a sense of humor. Kant at least liked jokes; there's a book that collects the ones in his writings and which reads like an archaic book of 'Dad' humor. In real life I find people who lack a sense of humor (I've known a few) do not seem to me to be fully human (likely they return the compliment and think the same thing of me). The only thinker of genius I admire who seemed to have no sense of humor is, I'm sorry to say, Simone Weil.
ReplyDeleteFor those who believe that Dylan is just an egocentric divo, try this video of Dylan rehearsing "We are the world" with real musicians, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and Quincey Jones, whom Dylan respects as real musicians and you can see Dylan's patience and even humility as he tries again and again to "sing", which is not one of his gifts.
ReplyDeleteSorry here's the video:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfVmJBF-OY
Interesting video. Dylan is singing outside his comfort zone and everyone is being supportive. The comments are great.
ReplyDeleteJohn Rapko: Your mention of Bernard Williams brought up a recurrent puzzle for me about a comment he made in the Preface to his book on Descartes. Over the years I have gone from being sure that I understood what he was getting at there to being sure that I don’t understand it at all. (I’ve read about 9 of his books, so I’m used to being puzzled by much of what he says, but this particular comment keeps importunately coming back to me.) I wonder what sense you make of Williams’s comment, assuming you’re familiar with it. He wrote: “…playing seventeenth-century scores on seventeenth-century instruments according to seventeenth-century practice, admirable enterprise though it may be otherwise, does not produce seventeenth-century music, since we have necessarily twentieth-century ears.” What’s he getting at here? Do you (or anyone else with a knowledge of Williams’s work) think he’s right?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteFritz Poebel
My first reaction is that he has it backwards: the music is the same, but the listeners aren’t. 21st Century listeners can’t possibly have the same reaction to the music that a 17th Century listener would have had. The 17th Century listener has never heard Beethoven or Mozart or Ellington or Coltrane. Because our musical experience is so different from that of the 17th Century listener, we could not possibly have the same experience that that listener would have had.
But then I reconsidered. This was Bernard Williams! Who am I to say he’s got it backwards? So I wind up thinking that he meant just what we wrote—that the music itself is different, not the listener. If he’d meant the latter, he’d have said so. That leads me to conclude, alas, that I have no idea what the text means, and I look forward to the question’s be taken up by the many great brains on the blog.
Fritz Poebel:
ReplyDeleteI do think Williams is right, as far as the scope of the claim goes. To see what he's getting at, consider his most elaborated version of the claim, from the talk of 1997 'Authenticity and Re-Creation', re-published posthumously in On Opera. On p. 126 he says: "We who now hear musical works from the past have heard many things that the composer and the original audiences had not heard, and our expectations and ranges of comparison are quite different. This sets an a priori limit on the idea of authenticity. If you generated exactly the same sound waves as were brought about in seventeen-century Mantua or eighteenth-century Leipzig, you would not make the same music, since no-one has seventeenth- or eighteenth-century ears." So 'twentieth-century 'ears'' are necessarily different in that they have different cognitive stock, expectations, ideals, ideologies, etc. than earlier ones. But why isn't it 'the same music' if aurally indiscernible between seventeenth- and twentieth-instances? Williams goes on to say that with an 'authentic' twentieth-century performance, if successful (?), "they [that is, current ears] are re-educated so that they can hear these [earlier] works for the first time. When performance decisions guided by ideals of authenticity are good decisions, as they often are, it is not because they make the music sound old but because they make it sound new." Williams must mean something like: (instances of) music in the fullest sense are not simply aural events, but include the reception of the events, that is, the hearing + understanding + enjoyment + appreciation of those events; and the reception can (necessarily) never be the same. Mutatis mutandis for Descartes: we can't understand Descartes as Descartes and his audience understood him, because we've experienced the trajectory of Descartes's thought, and the criticisms of Peirce, Dewey, Heidegger et alia.--Obviously it's a difficult thought, but I would think a common-enough one in hermeneutics.
I am going to go out on a limb here – as is my habit - and state, quite bluntly, as illustrious as Sir Bernard Williams may have been, this is pure intellectual elitist hogwash. Each person who listens to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, to Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, to Bach’s Fugues, and, for that matter, to Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven, and … need I go on, has an experience unique to that individual, and Sir Williams has no idea precisely what that is. My experience listening to these works is as unique to me as s. wallerstein’s experience is to him, as John Rapko’s experience is to him, as Sir Williams’ experience was to him. These contemporary experiences are as unique to each other as they were unique to listeners of the 17th and 18th century who first heard them, and which were equally unique to each of the 17th and 18th century listeners, each to each other. Sir Williams utter speculation that no one experiencing these works in the 21st century can have an experience equivalent to anyone who heard them when they were first performed is utter speculative nonsense. Beethoven performed the 9th Symphony for the first time to a standing ovation. Each person in that audience experienced that symphony in a unique manner – who is Sir Williams to say that no one hearing that symphony today for the first time has an experience equivalent to anyone who first heard it in Viennna on May 7, 1824, or anyone else who heard thereafter?
ReplyDeleteThe same is true of interpreting the works of Descartes, or Spinoza, or Hume, or Kant, …. I first read these works during my sophomore year in college. I had never read anything else like them. As I have referenced in a prior thread, when I first read Hume, I was beside myself. How does Sir Williams know that my experience was unlike that which anyone who first read Hume in the 1750’s experienced? Immanuel Kant was equally astonished in reading Hume, stating that it woke him from is dogmatic slumber. Williams’ assertion, with all due respect, is unadulterated, pretentious speciousness, and I am surprised that it is being given any serious consideration here as having any merit.
DP and JR: Thank you for your responses to my question. I don’t have any trouble with historicizing knowledge/knowing, and that passage from Williams has never puzzled me when I think of it applying to concepts. (I.e. epistemologically: I’ve been reading Hegel and Collingwood since the early 1970s, so historicism is part of the way I think.) But the music issue (as raised by Williams) has bothered for a long time. It seems to me that, if Williams is right, then not only can we “not produce seventeenth-century music,” we can’t listen to it either. And that seems too much to swallow. Anyway, thanks again for you helpful and illuminating comments.
ReplyDeleteMarc,
ReplyDeleteSorry to be my somewhat elitist (no doubt), correcting self, but the proper expression is "Sir Bernard" not "Sir Williams."
LFC,
ReplyDeleteSo how does one tell one Sir Bernard from another Sir Bernard? Was Galahad a first name, or his surname?
John Rapko,
Your defense of Bernard Williams and his claims regarding the ability of contemporary thinkers to interpret the philosophical works of the past in the same manner as they were interpreted by the writer’s own contemporaries raises an issue regarding Prof. Nussbaum, about whom you wrote positively above. You may recall that in the 1990’s Prof. Nussbaum testified as an expert witness in the lawsuit titled Romer v. Evans. The lawsuit involved a proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution which would have prohibited the State of Colorado, or any of its subdivisions, from enacting any legislation which protected the rights of gays and lesbians. Prof. Nussbaum caused a commotion in the philosophic community because she testified regarding Plato’s Symposium and argued against the claim that the history of philosophy provided the State with a “compelling interest” in favor of a law denying gays and lesbians the right to seek passage of local non-discrimination laws. A good deal of her testimony related to the meaning of the term “tolmema” in Plato’s works. Some academics criticized her as offering testimony which was inaccurate and misleading. But according to Prof. Williams, Prof. Nussbaum was not in a position to offer testimony under oath regarding the original meaning of Plato’s dialogues. This is particularly interesting given that Prof. Nussbaum spoke highly of Prof. Williams’ contributions to ethical philosophy.
There are no "innocent" readings or for that matter, experiences of music.
ReplyDeleteIf I read Marx today, even if I try to repress my knowledge of what occurred in supposed Marxist societies such as the USSR, that knowledge is there and those who read Marx in his day did not have that knowledge. My reading of Kant is bound to be influenced, whether I repress it or not, by my readings of Nietzsche, Freud and contemporary psychology which show that our conscious rational decisions are heavily influenced by unconscious factors.
If I listen to Beethoven's 9th Symphony today, first of all, I know that musical experts ever since have judged it to one of the greatest works of art, a knowledge Beethoven's contemporaries may have intuited but were not as sure of as I am. The number of conscious and above all, unconscious factors which influence my listening and my reading is too big to list and one huge unconscious factor is all we've lived through and learned since Descartes or Beethoven produced their masterpieces.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read Descartes, I have never read nay philosophy before. He was writing on a tabula rasa. Are you saying that there is nobody on Earth today who, hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time is hearing it the same way someone who was in the Vienna orchestra hall on May 7, 1824 heard it. How would you know that??? Your experience and knowledge is not necessarily duplicated in every human being on Earth.
Got to go. Off to court.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteEven if you had never read a work of philosophy before you read Descartes, you had heard of philosophy somewhere and the people who talked about philosophy to you had studied or read it or read about it and thus had been influenced by all the changes in philosophy since the 17th century, Kant's Copernacian revolution, the death of God, 19th century materialism, the rise of analytic philosophy in the early 20th century, existentialism, etc. When they told you about philosophy, all the changes had influenced how they talked about it.
What's more, philosophy, by the time you studied it, had become an academic subject, taught for course credit, with a final grade, taught by academics, generally with a Phd in the subject, etc., which was not the case in Descartes's day and which influences how people view it.
In addition, you read Descartes in a country with freedom of religion and free speech, where you knew that you could comment and criticize anything in the text without fear, while in Descartes's day expressing atheism or criticizing the Christian religion was still hazardous for your health. All of that is consciously or unconsciously internalized by a reader.
For Marc @ November 27, 2022, 8:51 PM
ReplyDeleteI think your point is trivial and hence silly. Maybe clustering, a machine learning concept, can make you see why. You start off with a lot of different data points(say dots on a cartesian plane)which trivially are unique. Example: (2,3),(2.1,5) ,(3.223,2),... It is a common and useful practice to want to find groups or clusters. Simplified: points within a cluster are closer to each other than to points in another cluster. There can be several layers of clusters in the data. In other words within a cluster you can find further sub-clusters.
MAD,
ReplyDeleteThomas Nagel put it less abstractly (my emphasis in boldface):
The problem is not confined to exotic cases, however, for it exists between one person and another. The subjective character of the experience of a person deaf and blind from birth is not accessible to me, for example, nor presumably is mine to him. This does not prevent us each from believing that the other's experience has such a subjective character....
Whatever may be the status of facts about what it is like to be a human being, or a bat, or a Martian, these appear to be facts that embody a particular point of view.
I am not adverting here to the alleged privacy of experience to its possessor. The point of view in question is not one accessible only to a single individual. Rather it is a type. It is often possible to take up a point of view other than one's own, so the comprehension of such facts is not limited to one's own case. There is a sense in which phenomenological facts are perfectly objective: one person can know or say of another what the quality of the other's experience is. They are subjective, however, in the sense that even this objective ascription of experience is possible only for someone sufficiently similar to the object of ascription to be able to adopt his point of view-to understand the ascription in the first person as well as in the third, so to speak. The more different from oneself the other experiencer is, the less success one can expect with this enterprise. In our own case we occupy the relevant point of view, but we will have as much difficulty understanding our own experience properly if we approach it from another point of view as we would if we tried to understand the experience of another species without taking up its point of view.
Anyone hear from Tony Couture?
ReplyDeleteNo posts here since the hurricane.
John Rapko et al,
ReplyDeleteWilliams is clearly playing around with the definition of "music" there.
If you generated exactly the same sound waves as were brought about in seventeen-century Mantua or eighteenth-century Leipzig, you would not make the same music, since no-one has seventeenth- or eighteenth-century ears.
That's not what most of us think of as "music." Music is in the sounds, not in the perception of the sounds. I would agree with him if he'd said no one today can hear the same music in the same way. But that's not quite what he said; he said you would not make the same music.
It's like with a dish of food. Two different people can eat from the same bowl and have different experiences of the dish. Same exact dish (the cook made the same/only dish), but the perceptions of it are not the same. (Say a Thai dish with lots of cilantro, served to a cilantro-lover and a cilantro-hater.) For that matter, an individual person can eat from the same dish and have two different perceptions of it (one bite before brushing her teeth, the other immediately after just a few moments later). And, of course, there are all of the differences in cultural and experiential influences Williams was getting at.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting excerpt. I never read Nagel's work despite knowing for many years about about his existence. Where is the excerpt from?
Eric,
ReplyDeleteAs Heraclitus might have said, into the same philosophical issues ever and ever different examples flow. I think a major part of the issue and the differing positions turn on the use of the term 'same', sometimes used strictly, sometimes expansively. So here: does the 'same' (instance of) music mean two performances that are aurally indiscernible (and to whom?), or does 'same' refer to actual performances of music ('same' songs, 'same' pieces'), which take place at particular times and places, and with perhaps particular audiences and their cognitive stocks and expectations. I would think that Williams would take a Wittgensteinian stance and say that the use of the term 'same' is always part of a larger framework of concepts, practices, and aims, and gains its point only within some such particular framework. One way to see why Williams takes his views on this to be obvious, yet others find them puzzling or obviously wrong, is to consider what seem to be his source problems, which I take to be issues that arise in the ideal of 'authentic music' (see the collection On Opera) and the kinds of issues in Collingwood and his (ascribed) 'principle of constructive re-enactment'(see the essay on Collingwood in The Sense of the Past, p. 350f). The issues are complex, but put simplistically: neither in cases of 'authentic' recent performances of seventeenth-century works, nor in cases of reading Descartes, is there a listener or reader who engages simultaneously in a seventeenth century listening or reading AND in a twenty-first century listening and reading. The former is impossible if for no other reason than that there are no recordings of 'original' performances; the latter is impossible (on Williams's account) because the recent reader has necessarily different cognitive stock, for reasons indicated by Williams and elaborated by s. wallerstein above. So Williams is not thinking of 'hard cases' where for all the world where there are two aurally indiscernible performances. How might Williams have dealt with such a case? Imagine the following: we listen to a recording of Charlie Patton singing the incomparable 'High Water Everywhere', and then a gifted contemporary performer who performs an aurally indistinguishable version, except without the effects of the primitive recording technology. Is it the 'same' music? It seems to me that intuitions on this will differ, and the reasons to say 'yes' are clear; but some of us might say 'no' because we treat the original recording as somehow expressive of the singer and revelatory of the place of its performance, and thus singer and place are partially constitutive of the performance; the music is not just aesthetically incomparable, but also ontologically unique.--Something like this answer might be VERY loosely extrapolated from the points Williams made in his essay 'The truth in relativism' and its talk about 'real options' and 'real confrontations'.
MAD @2:40 p.m.
ReplyDeleteThough your question is addressed to Eric, who quoted the passage, my guess is that the excerpt is from Nagel's essay "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?"
Indeed it is. Thanks LFC.
ReplyDeleteyou're welcome
ReplyDeleteLFC,
ReplyDeleteYou are over-intellectualizing Bernard Williams’ statement in an effort to give it substance which is just not there. Fritz quoted the statement which perplexed him as follows:
“…playing seventeenth-century scores on seventeenth-century instruments according to seventeenth-century practice, admirable enterprise though it may be otherwise, does not produce seventeenth-century music, since we have necessarily twentieth-century ears.”
This statement could have one of only three possible meanings: (1) playing any 17th century musical score on 17th century instruments is necessarily “different” from playing that same score on 17th century instruments today; (2) the aural sounds that were emitted by such a performance in the 17th century are necessarily “different” than the aural sounds which would be emitted if such a performance were repeated today; (3) the emotional and physiological response which a listener hearing such a performance today would have would necessarily be “different” from the emotional and physiological response which a listener hearing such a performance in the 17th century.
I maintain that none of the propositions above is true, and that it is incoherent nonsense. And no attempts to redeem it, with over-intellectualized language, rehabilitates it.
Why would a contemporary rendition of the 17th century score, using 17th century instruments, necessarily be different. Granted, if the orchestra used 21st century instruments, the sounds which would be emitted would be significantly different. But that is not what Sir Bernard is saying. He is stipulating that the contemporary performance will be performed on 17th century instruments, and because it is a contemporary performance, it would necessarily be “different.” Why? Are contemporary musicians’ techniques so different from those of 17the century musicians that duplication would be impossible? But would that not also be true o different performances of different 17th century ensembles? The skill and expertise of different musicians was likely as variable in 17th century as they are today. This proposed explanation of Sir Bernard’s comment makes no sense, and it is its sense that we are seeking to untangle, are we not?
As to (2), why wouldn’t a contemporary performance on authentic 17th century instruments produce the same aural sounds – which are no more than vibrations of air – be the same as the aural sounds which were produced in the 17th century? Has the air changed so significantly that it is impossible? Are the skills of the musicians so different that duplication of the physical sounds is impossible? Of course not. So (2) cannot be a coherent explanation of what Sir Bernard was attempting to say.
Regarding (3), the emotions which one experiences while listening to a musical performance - or while experiencing any artistic expression, be it looking at the Mona Lisa or a Jackson Pollack painting; watching a performance of Swan Lake or West Side Story; or watching Citizen Kane or Alien – those emotions are evidenced by physiological changes – changes in blood pressure; neurons discharging; perspiration; eye movements; etc. Is Sir Bernard claiming that these physiological changes which a contemporary listener would experience listening to a 17th century musical score being performed on 17th century instruments would necessarily be different from the comparable experiences of all 17th century listeners? First, why could not these physiological changes (assuming they could have been measured in the 17th century) be identical in two different people living three centuries apart? And two, how could Sir Bernard possibly know that this was not possible?
(Continued)
In sum, Sir Bernard’s comment is incoherent nonsense, dressed up to sound very sophisticated and informative. It is not. It is hogwash. And just because it was stated by a renowned British academic with a Ph.D. in philosophy, does not elevate it above incoherent hogwash. I challenge LFC, or John Rapko, or anyone else reading this blog to point out any error(s) in my above analysis; or, alternatively, to offer a 4th interpretation of Sir Bernard’s comment which is lucid and coherent, which I have failed to consider.
ReplyDeleteAnd the expansion of the musical comment to one’s experience reading the works of a great philosopher such as Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, etc., to the effect that no one reading these works could possibly have the same experience as someone reading these same works when they were first published. I maintain that this assertion – which s. wallerstein believes is true – is likewise incoherent and unprovable. Why couldn’t the thought processes that I experienced, when I first read Descartes’ Meditations as a sophomore in college, duplicate the thought processes of someone living in 1637 France reading the Meditations for the first time in French? The same applies to Prof. Wolff’s cognitive experience when reading Descartes’ Meditations for the first time; or LFC’s experience; or John Rapko’s experience? On what basis could it possibly be maintained that such a congruency is absolutely impossible? And how would one prove this? S. wallerstein maintains that the social and political influences which I had experienced before I first read the Meditations necessarily would color my interpretation in a way which a French citizen reading the Meditations for the first time could not possibly have experienced. How could the Civil Rights movement which I lived through; the Kennedy assassination which I lived through; the movies I had seen; my reading of the Grapes of Wrath and 1984; the family issues which I was experiencing; etc. necessarily affect my cognitive interpretation of Descartes’ Meditations in a way that no French person reading the same Meditations in French have experienced – assuming my English translation of the Meditations was faithful to the original French? I was a very detailoriented student, and the margins of my books, particularly my philosophy books, are filled with comments and observations which I made while reading the works. On what basis could Sir Bernard, or anyone else, claim, with any degree of certainty, that the comments and observations I made could not possibly replicate the observations of some French citizen reading the same Meditations 400 years earlier?
This is all intellectualizing that sounds impressive, but has no necessary, undeniable basis in reality. And, as can be judged by the hostility of my reaction, it is demonstrative of a willingness on the part of the “intellectual elite” to give credence to statements which have a patina of intellectual validity, when, upon examination, they are nothing but incoherent, and unprovable, nonsense And frankly, the people who read this blog, and who comment on this blog, should know better. Fritz had every reason to be perplexed by Sir Bernard’s comment, because it is meaningless – in both the musical context, and in the general philosophical context.
Post-script:
ReplyDeleteAfter my court hearing in Ann Arbor yesterday (which, fortunately I won), I walked around Ann Arbor for a while and visited three different book stores. Since the demise of Borders, a variety of independent book stores have sprung up to fill the vacuum. In the first book store, which indicated it is devoted to literature and works of the Beat generation, a book caught my eye in light of the above discussion of “intellectual elitism.” The book is titled “In Defense Of Elitism – Why I’m Better Than You and You Are Better Than Someone Who Didn’t Buy This Book,” by Joel Stein. I immediately snapped it up, to prove that I belong among the intellectual elite. In the second book store, devoted according to its name to avantgarde literary works, I found a book by Martha Nussbaum, referred to above, titled “Citadels of Pride”; and a book by Hannah Arendt, titled “Between Past And Future.” In the third book store, The Dawn Treader, a used book store (which I believe Prof. Zimmerman probably stepped foot in when he was attending U of M) I looked for a copy of Conrad’s Nostromo, but they had none. So, I have my reading time for the next few months cut out for me. Query: If I do not actually finish reading the books, can I still consider myself among the intellectual elite just for buying them?
MAD,
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you are talking about. How does my comment on Nov. 27, at 10:51 PM relating to Bernard Williams’ comment involve clustering issues?
Are you sure you are not referring to my comment on Nov. 27, at 10:31 A.M. regarding the pattern I found in decisions by the Michigan Court of Appeals of appeals from the Michigan Court of Claims?
Marc,
ReplyDeleteJust to begin with, there were no "French citizens" (your concept) at the time Descartes wrote his Meditations. No one in France was a citizen before the French Revolution.
That is, historical context counts.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteBelow is the definition of “citizen” from the online Britannica Dictionary.
citizen /ˈsɪtəzən/ noun
plural citizens
Britannica Dictionary definition of CITIZEN
[count]
1
: a person who legally belongs to a country and has the rights and protection of that country
She was a United States citizen but lived most of her life abroad.
a group of Japanese citizens
I've been treated like a second-class citizen. [=someone who is not given the same rights as other people]
2
: a person who lives in a particular place
the citizens of Boston
There was a French nation before the French Revolution and Napoleon’s accession to Emperor. Prior to 1789, people who lived in France were French citizens, just as people who lived in the colony of Virginia before the American Revolution were Virginia citizens.
Post-Post-script:
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know the derivation of the term “Ivy League”? Until yesterday, I thought, as many people think, that it refers to the tendrils of ivy which adorn the colleges’ walls. Not so. Yesterday, after I finished my book shopping, I went to the University of Michigan Law Library to do some legal research. The law library is an amazing architectural achievement – it is sunk below ground, with huge glass windows on a 60 degree angle, and as you approach the library from outside, you can look below through the windows and see the inside of the library. After I completed my research and was leaving the library, I saw an Asian man admiring the structure. So, I walked up to him and said, “Quite an amazing structure, right. Can you imagine the meeting of the law school administrators and professors before the library was built discussing how to build the new library, and this architect proposes placing it underground with these glass windows? I wonder how they reacted.” He agreed, and indicated he was astonished by the juxtaposition of the classic architecture of the law school itself next to this modernistic library architecture. He was particularly fascinated by the murals of each of the Ivy League schools on the law school windows, with their coat of arms and Latin mottoes. I asked him if he was a graduate student here (he looked to be in his mid 30’s) and he responded, No, he was visiting friends in Detroit and decided to do some sight-seeing. He told me he was from New York City. I asked him what college he had attended, and he said Columbia. I said that was a pretty good school (nod to s. wallerstein), and told him I had attended Rutgers. He laughed and said that we were like brothers, since Rutgers was originally named Queen’s College, and Columbia was originally named King’s College. He then asked me if I knew the derivation of the term “Ivy League.” I responded that I thought it referred to the ivy growing on their walls. He said, No, that’s not it. He said that back in the 19th century, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia formed the first college football league. Because there were four colleges, they named the league after the Roman numerals, IV.
You can learn something new every day, if you keep your ears and eyes open – and are willing to talk to strangers.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that everyone in France was considered a citizen before the French Revolution: they certainly did not all enjoy the same rights.
Anyway, Descartes's Meditations was written in Latin. I assume that you read it in English translation. There are no perfect translations and thus, your experience of reading it was not the same as that of someone who read it in Latin when it first appearedl
In addition, you claim above that Bernard Williams cannot "prove" that one's experience of Descartes today is different than that of someone in the 17th century.
You're playing with the word "prove". Sure, he cannot prove it in the same way that math or logic can be proved.
You constantly link to videos about the atrocities Putin's troops are committing in Ukraine. Can you prove that those videos show what is occurring in Ukraine and are not fabricated in Hollywood?
You can't. Even if you go to Ukraine yourself and take vidoes, well, maybe an evil genius is deceiving you.
All you can prove, according to Descartes, is your own existence and even that proof has been questioned.
MS: (1) I don't believe that Bernard Williams had an earned PhD in philosophy. (2) If you haven't read it already you might be interested in the chapter on citizen/citizenship in Alexander Bickel's "The Morality of Consent" (1975). The chapter is entitled 'Citizen or Person? What is Not Granted Cannot be Taken Away.' On p 35, Bickel wrote: "The original Constitution, prior to Reconstruction, contained no definition of citizenship and precious few references to the concept altogether." Apparently, citizenship was not a major constitutional issue until after the Civil War. Anyway, given that you couldn't get a copy of Nostromo, you might enjoy filling in the reading gap with Bickel's book or parts thereof.
ReplyDeletes. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteDo I bother to take the time to respond to your counter-argument? Well, yeah.
First, one of the definitions of “citizen” quoted above is “a person who lives in a particular place.” Under this definition, people who were living in France before the Revolution were French citizens by virtue of where they lived.
Second, Yes, the Meditations were first written Latin, but then they were translated into French, and multiple other languages. I suspect that a lot of people living in France contemporaneous with Descartes could not read Latin, and therefore resorted to reading a French translation. You claim that reading the translation of any literary work necessarily changes the reader’s interpretation from that of a native speaker of the original version. On what basis, if the translation is faithful to the meaning of the words in the original language? Do you claim that an American reading an English translation of Les Miserables or of War And Peace could not possibly have the same reaction as a Frenchman/woman or Russian man/woman reading these novels in their native language. Not only cannot you not prove this, the claim is preposterous.
Finally, there are varying degrees of epistemological proofs. But, first, putting the question of proof aside, Sir Bernard’s statement about the lack of verisimilitude between hearing a contemporary performance on 17th century instrument to a 17th century performance of the same musical score is not only impossible to prove, it is analytically incoherent. It does not make sense under any of the three propositions I have offered above, the fact that his comment cannot be proved regardless.
Regarding the question of proof itself, there is a significant difference between proving a statement which compares inter-generational human experiences, versus proving events which are contemporaneous, but occurring geographically elsewhere. In the former case, since the experience of someone living 400 years ago is impossible to confirm, an effort to compare those experiences with contemporary experiences has an impossible hurdle from the get-go, a hurdle which cannot be overcome by relying on my sense perceptions. Regarding the war in Ukraine, if I were to go to Ukraine to witness the Russian carnage, I would be able to trust my sense perceptions to a significantly higher degree that I would be able to trust my speculation about what a person who lived 400 years ago, a context in which my sense perceptions are useless.. Regarding my trusting the video footage which I see on my television, here again, in order to invalidate what I am seeing in multiple reports, by multiple journalists, I would have to believe that they are all a part of some conspiracy to deceive the public in order to discredit their reports. Is it possible, yes, I suppose, but likely – I don’t think so. This is distinguishable from believing a journalist who might report that what a person living 400 years ago experienced while listening to a musical score performed on 17th century instruments, assuming that the person did not keep a written record of the experience in a memoir, and even in that case, I would have no confirmation that the memoir was actually written by the purported listener to the musical performance. This contrasts with the confirmation which multiple reports by multiple journalists of the carnage which Russian is causing in Ukraine. The latter example constitutes a higher level of proof than the former example, and higher levels of proof is all that I can hope for. 100 % of certainty in not possible in this world, either now or 400 years ago, but 90-95% likelihood is good enough for me.
Marc Susselman,
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, are you dictating or typing your comments?
Marc
ReplyDeleteI don't know why you are trying to rope me into the debate about Williams's position since I said nothing about its substance, either pro or con. (I haven't even followed all the ins and outs of the debate about it in this thread.)
Frankly I have no interest in the question whether 17th cent music played in the 21st cent is "the same music." I'm interested in music, but this particular question -- philosophical or semantic or whatever it is -- doesn't really interest me.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteTyping. If my comment is long, I generally fist type it in Word, and then copy and paste it into Prof. Wolff's blog. Sometimes, if I ma in a rush and my comment in short, I will type it directly into the blog.
LFC,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. I was actually responding to John Rapko's comment and erroneously ascribed it to you. My apologies.
Fritz,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your correction. I just assumed that Bernard Williams had a Ph.D. since he was a professor of philosophy at Oxford, and other institutions.
It is true that the legal definition of being a citizen in the U.S. was added to the Constitution by the 1st sentence of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This provision has raised the ire of Republicans, because it means that children born of illegal immigrants are granted U.S. citizenship at birth. But this does not invalidate my reliance above on the secondary meaning of “citizen” which is based on where one lives.
Thank you for the Bickel reference. I will check it out. In the meantime, I have ordered a copy of Nostromo from Amazon. (Hiss, boo!)
ReplyDeleteI think the proper term for persons who lived in France before the Revolution is "subject." They were not citizens with rights, but subjects of the Monarch. Even today, Brits are subjects, not citizens.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteFor sure, translation always changes the meaning a little. First of all, there are words which have no equivalent in the other language. Try translating "cool" (the slang version) into Spanish or "huevón" into English.
By the way, I speak as someone who has worked professionally as a translator and simultaneous interpreter for over 40 years now.
Latin is especially tough to translate into English because Latin word order is very flexible (because of the system of declensions) while English word order is very rigid. When you change the word order, you change the rhythm of the sentence and thus, change the reading experience a little.
I knew enough Latin to pass a reading exam when I entered graduate school over 50 years ago as well as an exam in French. I no longer read Latin, although I still do French.
David Palmeter: Even today, Brits are subjects, not citizens.
ReplyDeleteNot quite so. Not all British subjects are British citizens.
See
https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-subject
Eric,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction. It looks very complex. Do both citizens and subjects have the right to vote?
@ Mark Susselman 10:11 am on November 29
ReplyDeleteThis so-called history of the term "Ivy League" is what Wikipedia calls a "folk etymology". It's clearly wrong. Wikipedia also informs us that the first use of "Ivy" to refer to a group of colleges was in 1933: it included eight colleges and Army, and that the formation of the Ivy League as an association occurred several years alter with the current membership There's no trace of a group of "four".
@ Mark Susselman 12:23 November 29. " I just assumed that Bernard Williams had a Ph.D. since he was a professor of philosophy at Oxford, and other institutions." Couldn't be more wrong. Almost none of the well-known British philosophers of Williams' generation had PhD's. And this continued for another twenty years or so, thanks to Gilbert Ryle's influence. (He thought the PhD led to overspecialization, and urged the BPhil at Oxford as a better alternative for those who wanted to become academic philosophers.).
Warren,
ReplyDeleteThank you for that clarification. I guess I have to be more discerning about what I am told by strangers – but he was a graduate of Columbia University, or so he told me.
Regarding Ph.D.’s among British philosophy professors, I have confirmed that neither Bertrand Russell nor G. E. Moore had Ph.D.’s. But they jointly awarded Wittgenstein a Ph.D., based on his Tractatus.
Why did what Warren wrote need to be confirmed. What he wrote is a well-known fact of British academic life. Indeed, it was a fact of academic life almost everywhere until the Ph.D. began to make inroads in the late 19th C. I guess the devaluation of various forms of certification is part of the socio-historical process. You can see it happening around us as, e.g., the US high school diploma became almost worthless as a credential for certain occupations. And now the bachelor's degree is going far down the same road to socio-economic worthlessness. One might even argue that the Ph.D. is now quite worthless unless it's buttressed by publications. C'est la vie.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThe late 19th century begins around 1880. Bertrand Russell was born in 1872; G. E. Moore was born in 1873. So, it was quite possible that by the time they both reached adulthood, the need for having a Ph.D. had become ubiquitous.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteAs Warren Goldfarb's comment indicated (or implied), the norms of British and American academia were not the same (and still are not completely the same).
Prof. Goldfarb said that "almost none of the well-known British philosophers of Williams' generation had PhD's." You should not need to confirm that, but if you wanted to, you'd have to look up British philosophers of roughly Williams' generation -- people like Stuart Hampshire, A.J. Ayer, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, P.F. Strawson (actually I'm not sure whether he's that generation or not), Elizabeth Anscombe, and various other names that I can't supply offhand.
Instead, you looked up two people who are not Williams' generation but are significantly older (namely Moore and Russell).
My goodness LFC and Anonymous, you are making a federal case out of the fact that I confirmed what Warren wrote. What’s the point?? This was not meant as any aspersion on Warren’s credibility. As it turns out, Wittgenstein, who was of the same generation as all the philosophy professors you have identified, LFC, was in fact awarded a Ph.D. Let it go.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it's no big deal. I was just wondering about the mindset that leads someone to "confirm" what's pretty common knowledge, that's all.
ReplyDeleteAlso H.L.A. Hart and R.M. Hare, to toss in two other names.
ReplyDeleteApparently you are unable to let it go, as if I committed some grievous, unforgivable sin by seeking to confirm Warren’s statement regarding British professors and Ph.D’s.
ReplyDeleteThe following is an excerpt from an article titled, UK Universities – Academic Titles and Hierarchy Explained, https://www.discoverphds.com/advice/doing/uk-academic-titles:
“Professor
A professor is the highest academic title and denotes an individual at the top of their respective field. This individual would have made significant scholarly contributions to their field.
In EU countries such as Germany and France, a faculty member has to sit and pass a review before they can become a Professor. This review is undertaken by a panel of highly experienced academic professionals and requires the individual to produce a document outlining their contributions to their field before they can even be considered.
In the UK, a different approach is taken. Rather than being appointed by an independent review, it instead comes down to the university’s discretion whether they should be upgraded to a full professorship. However, nearly all UK universities mirror a very similar review process, with some universities also utilising independent panel members to ensure fair professoriate decisions are made.”
So, in order to be titled Professor in the UK, a candidate must have made significant scholarly contributions, i.e., be published, and undergo a rigorous panel review, equivalent to a doctoral candidate defending his/her thesis. So, in the end, although the term “Ph. D.” may not be utilized, the processes in the UK and in the United States are similar.
I urge you once more, just let it go.
Marc
ReplyDeleteYou misread some of what I wrote. I said if you wanted to confirm it, you should have looked up people roughly of Williams's generation, not Moore and Russell (or Wittgenstein for that matter). Seems an entirely reasonable point. However I won't press the point since you seem to be taking offense. We can go back to 17th century music or whatever the topic was.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteJust as you use this space to talk about the book you're reading, your encounter with a stranger with a weird theory about the origins of the Ivy League, what you saw on TV the night before, the triumph of your favorite football team, etc., and no one complains, I don't see why LFC can't talk about the academic credentials of British philosophers in the 2nd half of the 20th century. After all, this is philosophy blog, not one dedicated to celebrating college football victories.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with LFC commenting on the academic requirements of British professors, except in this context it was as a criticism of me for having sought to confirm Warren Goldfarb’s representation that one can qualify as a Professor at Oxford, as Bernard Williams did, without a Ph. D. And then to criticize that I sought to confirm it by checking on the academic credentials of Profs. Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore, because they were not contemporaries of Bernard Williams. It came across as a bit petty to me. And thank you for indulging me and my extraneous remarks about my conversations with strangers, my new reading material, and my interest in college football.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome.
Professor Wolff has had the generosity to provide us with this space of free conversation and I find no problem in the fact that you make use of it.
Some people construe every disagreement as a personal attack.
ReplyDelete@ Mark Susselman 10:56 am
ReplyDeleteSo now let me add that Bertrand Russell never held the rank of Professor. He was offered a Professorship at Harvard in 1914, but declined. He was initially offered a Professorship at City College of New York in 1940 but then the offer was annulled by the Supreme Court of New York State. In Britain, the only academic appointment he ever held was as Lecturer.
Warren,
ReplyDeleteSo why then do we think Russell was such a great philosopher? How can you be a great philosopher without the title to go with it? Wasn't Aristotle a Professor at the school he founded? Please tell me that G. E. Moore, at least, was a Professor.
Well, according to Wikipedia, G. E. Moore was not a Professor either. He held the title of Chair of the Dept. of Mental Philosophy and Logic at Cambridge.
ReplyDeleteThis has generated the following Moore Paradox:
One can teach philosophy in college without being a Professor or having a Ph. D., but I do not believe that one can teach philosophy in college without being a Professor or having a Ph. D.