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More Stuff and Fewer People To Share It With

Here's a dynamic that I think shapes a lot of politics in the West right now, though I am going to focus on here in the UK. I think this dynamic arises from the interplay of two facts about widespread voter preferences, and then another fact about the world more broadly. I suspect this dynamic is basically perennial, and it has just become more salient to me because it appeared much more salient later on in my life - I came of age in the high-growth-and-expectations thereof world of Britain in the late 90s through the crash, which suppresses this dynamic to a considerable extent. But I can't prove that so will just focus on the present. Finally, more generally, I won't be able to prove any of these points here, but I will try and provide links to indicate the sort of stuff that makes me think as I do. Obviously in something as far reaching as this I am far from expert on any particular element, so if I am wrong mea culpa, but you will at least see why I think as I do. Ok e...
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The Free Speech World is Rowdy

This is another in the series of "things I often find myself saying so I want there to just be one blog I can point to rather than repeat myself" posts. This one is prompted by the University of Sussex facing a (to my mind) ludicrous fine  from a government organisation for failing to protect free speech whose head is, at the same time, lecturing universities on the need to "stimulate debate on contentious topics". These two aims - protect free speech, foster debate in universities - seem complementary and laudatory. But I think they are being interpreted in a way that puts them fundamentally at odds. And, what's more, the way they are being implemented at the moment creates an incentive system which will get us little open debate while punishing speech. Cards on the table: I am closer to the "free speech purist" end of things than most. I am, for instance, pretty cynical about speech codes when they are made parts of organisational codes of conduct. ...
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Reichenbach's Soliloquy

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                                            Hamlet -    Absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept   "indeterminate as to time" order lends to a unique simultaneity,  i.e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the   departure and return of a first-signal... So the Logical Positivists are some of my favourite philosophers. Those involved in the movement were also very much involved in artistic movements of their day, though nowadays philosophers tend to see them as rather humourless and dry. And often they could be. But I'd just like to draw attention to this rather odd piece from a positivist which combines wry humour with a bit of literary interpretation. Behold, Hans Reichenbach's "Hamlet's Soliloquy", which is chapter 15 in  The Rise of Scientific Philosophy . Enjoy!   " To be or not...
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The Agents of History

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Today's post is a bit of a ramble on a topic that I often think about yet have no firm opinion regarding. The issue is the tendency to treat leftists as in some sense more agential than right wingers. We see this in articles that frame behaviour from right wingers as an inevitable response to leftist excess. A particularly shocking example of this became somewhat infamous on Twitter: But you can also sometimes see this in cases wherein more centrist pundits blast left wingers for making right wing victory more likely. It's at least a fairly common genre so I hope readers will be familiar from their own experience. It even crops up in how we talk, since "reactionary" as a term for extreme right wingers presents them as, well, reactive; and in more fancy academic socialist circles there will be debates about who the "historical subject" is or similar that more or less presuppose this group will be using their agency to advance progressive causes - at least whe...
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Learning From Four Analytic Philosophy Wins

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I have been somewhat pessimistic about analytic philosophy (including my own specifically ) on this blog. While I have hosted other voices , at least in my own meta-philosophical musings the tone has been somewhat doomerish. Well, I wouldn't want to let it be said that I am in any way consistent, and in any case it's been a bit too long since I posted on here so thought I would throw out a low effort crowd pleaser. So herein I will outline some things that I think analytic philosophy has unambiguously done well at, and try to draw general lessons from them. (Apologies about the length between posts, I really do mean for these to be about one a month and I have failed at that lately. I am actually working on a longer post it's just taking more time than I anticipated and events keep interfering. As the poet said, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.) Democritus having an absolute blast. To be clear on some terminology, I am not going to be too ...
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Philosophers on the Index

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Some time back there was some hubbub about an APA blog post piece posing the question " Should we continue to read and honour immoral philosophers? " The answer, it was widely thought, is so obviously "yes" that it is a sign of the moral decay of philosophy - dare I say western civilisation more broadly! - that this is now in doubt. Unfortunately for those of us seeking a fun day out on the internet, however,  the piece in fact agreed the answer is obviously "yes" and proceeded to argue as much. Curses . So why don't I give the internet what it wants and actually try to argue for the absurd proposition?  I will say up front: in the end, I don't buy it. Common sense is basically right on this one. Sometimes you can learn valuable things from people who did bad stuff. Honouring people is, I guess, a bit more iffy; but in many cases we honour people who did bad stuff for different good stuff they also did. I suppose we could put a blanket ban on ever ...
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Error is Infinite and Chaotic

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A conversation with a colleague the other day prompts me to explain in more detail why I think myself and most of those like me are wasting our lives. I have already explained that I think analytic philosophy is a degenerative research programme building shoddy structures from inadequate material. But the sunny optimism of Daniel Stoljar's engaging book has given me the tools to explain in somewhat more detail where exactly my worries lie. Stoljar makes a rough and ready division of questions one may ask into three sorts: topic questions, big questions, and small questions. I will give a slightly wrong description of his division here to suit my purposes. Topic questions are agenda setting big picture concerns that get a person wondering in the first place, the driving curiosity that lie behind whole swathes of inquiry. They are or can be pretty vague and high level -- "What's everything made out of?" "How can I live a good life?" etc. Big questions are ...
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