Any donkey could? Amusing essays on Western culture before the 20th century


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Draft version: version 2 (9th November 2025, a couple of surprising grammar errors corrected; no artificial intelligence was intentionally used in producing this; I hope the online word processor does not add its own errors)


A young Chinese colleague at a shop at which I work told me that the Chinese food here, in the city of Manchester, is not good enough. But why is that? Is there an incentive against going above this level? I have inquired and I suspect there is/ I hope I have not violated an analogous taboo with the production of this little book. About a month ago I began collecting a number of essays, or academic papers, I have written: for people of intellectual interests, but who are not motivated to read very demanding works (or not outside of their specialism anyway). But I found that there are probably too many to put in one book. As we travel eastwards, there is much interest in the history of Western culture, so I decided to collect in this book light essays concerning Western culture before the 20th century. I call them "light" because they strike me as easy reading, but what is easy reading is probably individual-relative. For some readers, they are perhaps difficult. Also, occasionally there is an essay which is slightly harder going, by the general standards of this book. I have expanded the abstracts to some essays, for reader's convenience. Various essays are preceded by a little poem I wrote, sometimes representing my own thoughts or feelings, sometimes those of others (which I should have put in quotation marks). Note: a few of these pieces are dialogues rather than essays. (By the way, I have cut and paste the essays into this document and have not removed my name.) The title of this book is called "Any donkey could" in anticipation of someone who reads this and thinks, "Any donkey with a bit of skill, metaphorically speaking, could produce such a book." (Don't donkeys need more assurances of the work's being valued beforehand: "I don't write unless I am assured citation," etc.? None of these essays have appeared in journals before.)






Contents


Pre-history
How did the arts originate? The group demarcation and the scientific account.


Ancient classics
*How did Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx?
How many riddles did Oedipus solve
Myth and implication: why did Oedipus solve the Sphinx's riddle?
*Why did Jocasta marry Oedipus?
Sophocles on trial: a case for devaluation.
What is a classic from the start?
Handbook battles, H.J. Rose versus Robert Graves: a lesson in common ground.
Why can't we see this controversy? Bruno Latour, Greek myths, local alternatives.


The Enlightenment
Madness at the centre: on Descartes' first meditation turned into a dialogue.
The first meditation again: a hidden source of doubt?
Why does Descartes say that he is not his mind in the second med?
The problem of the poor king, from Descartes and Rousseau.
A war of all against all: the close up problem
Determinism and a counterexample to the is-ought gap: a classic of analytic philosophy paper?
How much credit do we give to Hume's readers on the is-ought gap: the blind review model versus the tribal model
Has everything on Adam Smith been written? A model and a counterargument.
*Chapter One's Dreams: the paradox of the specialist on specialization
A puzzle from the preface to Montesquieu's Persian Letters
What is so special about Kant's moral philosophy? (And why should we tell you?)


Victorian literature
Outline of a social constructivist approach to Locke on the purpose of language
How do you read Mary Barton? An economics preface puzzle and a solution
Victorian social science and Elizabeth Gaskell's literary strategy, versus the Brontë sisters
*Dorothea versus John Locke's philosophy.
Dorothea's Lockean impressions through the lens of Joseph Raz.
The varieties of cleverness again: Rosamond and rational actor economics.
Christina Rossetti's "Pros and Cons" versus Middlemarch: rhythm and anti-racism.
Self-interest and Henry Heine on the lack of English minor masters.
"La proximité de cet homme": a case of Victorian deconstruction?


Victorian anthropology
Why did Frazer not do fieldwork?
The Golden Bough as an argument against diffusionism.
Frazer and the social function of gift exchange norms
Hillo! Frazer and a last resort attempt to catch something in one's net
Hillo! Getting caught in your own net as a humiliation rite.
Savage and civilized on controlling the weather, from The Golden Bough


Victorian philosophy
Freedom from intervention and the rights of children
An idiotic definition of an idiot








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How did the arts originate? The group demarcation and the scientific account


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. Why did human beings first begin making art? In this paper, I present two accounts of its origins, one of which connects the arts to the desire for group demarcation and another to scientific impulses. According to the group demarcation account, art was made as part of distinguishing a group of persons from outsiders. According to the scientific account, which, note, does not claim to be more accurate, art was made to produce effects in the audience, as if their minds are input-output systems: this input produces this output, e.g. an experience of fear. 
Draft version: Version 2 (19th July 2022).


Wicked is the summer breeze
That experiments upon the trees—


        Why did man first begin making art? By "man," I do not wish to exclude women. By "art," I wish to cover more than just visual art and include poetry, music, and more. Why did human beings first begin making art? Some will say that this question lies outside the province of philosophy. It cannot be addressed merely by reflecting. It requires evidence from history. Furthermore, we lack this evidence. Others will say that actually you cannot be a proper philosopher without an account of the origins of the arts. Yet others will say that in earlier cultures people did not think of the arts as we do today. They did not separate out painting, music, and poetry from religion, as we often do (Allan 2019: 10). One cannot address the question without understanding the concepts which people long ago worked with. Anyway, I shall present two speculations. I should also say, as part of my preliminary remarks, that I am not using art to cover specifically "high art" – art that is prestigious or merits prestige – rather to cover all artistic creation.
        We can call the first speculation "the group demarcation account." Consider a few schoolchildren who decide to form a gang. They develop ways of demarcating who is a gang member and who is not. They begin walking in a peculiar way, for example, and talking in a peculiar way. They no longer address each other by the names given at birth, rather by names only known to members. They claim certain spaces to be their own. One day they agree to all espouse the view that the moon is larger than the sun, despite a certain amount of evidence to the contrary. This gets them in a lot of trouble with the authorities, whom they suspect to be sun-worshippers. They excommunicate members who refuse to tow the party line in the face of pressure from the authorities.
All this is nothing unusual, I presume. Presumably, throughout history there have been groups who adopt practices to demarcate members from non-members. According to the first account, the arts were introduced for this purpose. People decorated themselves in certain ways as part of demarcating their group. They sang songs in a certain style. Often they developed artistic styles that are hard to imitate, for this was all the better given the end of demarcating members from non-members. Sometimes the art forms were even difficult to enjoy. For example, one had to listen to the songs many times before one was able to extract any pleasure from them. A process of initiation was required.
        The group demarcation account has surely occurred to others before. Is it within the essays of Victor Mota? We can call the second account "the scientific account." A child, or even an adult, may be fascinated by certain physical cause and effect relationships. A magnet attracts an iron filing. Over and over again, the child puts the magnet within the vicinity of the iron filing to observe this, until eventually they move on to other interests. Similarly, the mind can be subject to predictable effects. One says, "Boo," while a person is concentrating on something and scares that person. At a more advanced level, one tells frightening stories. It may be impossible to capture in a formula how to do that, but the artist is much like the child with the magnet. They repeatedly make works which have an effect that they anticipate beforehand. Then they observe that effect. It is as if they were confirming a hypothesis. Such artworks may aim at suspense, fear, laughter, or other effects.
        I suppose that artworks that arise from scientific impulses are more likely to have wider appeal. The artist regards the human mind as a system which, given certain inputs, will be subject to certain effects. There is less incentive to make the artwork only accessible to some. But it is still possible to produce an artwork of more limited appeal in a scientific spirit. One thinks, "There is an effect one can only produce in a few minds, and it can be produced by means of an artwork such as this..." 
        The two accounts can be combined. Amongst group A, artworks arose for tribal reasons – I mean group demarcation reasons, if "tribal" is a poor choice of word – whereas the scientific account captures why artworks have arisen amongst group B. Also a person may begin creating artworks for the reason captured by the scientific account, but others may imitate their artworks because this provides a convenient way to demarcate a group. But probably there are better accounts than both of these!


Reference
Allan, D. 2019 (second version). Analytic Aesthetics and the Dilemma of Timelessness. Available at: https://philpapers.org/rec/ALLAAA-10
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How did Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper presents two accounts of how Oedipus might have arrived at the answer to the Sphinx's riddle by proceeding methodically. On one account, he considers every animal he knows, when none seems to answer the riddle, he escapes the conclusion that the riddle has no answer or the answer is unknown to him by opening himself to metaphorical interpretations of the riddle. 
Draft version: version 21 (12th September 2020; first version on 2nd September 2012)


    The Sphinx was a being with the head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle and the tail of a serpent. She guarded the entrance to the city of Thebes and would pose a riddle to travellers who aimed to enter. If they could not answer it, she would devour them. The riddle is "What goes on fours in the morning, on twos in the afternoon and on threes at night?" When Oedipus travelled to Thebes, the Sphinx posed the riddle to him. He said that the answer is a human being, because a human being walks on all fours in early life, on two legs as an adult and with a walking stick in old age. It would seem that the Sphinx regarded the value of her life as bound up with having a riddle that no mortal could solve, for she killed herself because of his success. The people of Thebes appointed Oedipus to be their king because of his service to the city.
    In Sophocles' play Oedipus the King, Oedipus talks about his achievement. He converses with the blind seer Tieresias, who understands the language of birds and uses this ability to predict the future. Oedipus says:
    "Her riddle was not something the first man to stroll along could solve – a prophet was required. And there the people saw your knowledge was no use – nothing from birds or picked up from the gods. But then I came, Oedipus, who knew nothing. Yet I finished her off, using my wits rather than relying on birds." (2004: 471-478)
    In this passage, Oedipus criticizes Tieresias for not being able to help the city in its time of need, with the special way of knowing that he has. Towards the end of the conversation, Oedipus criticizes Tieresias in another way: for speaking in riddles. Tieresias replies mockingly:
    "Well, in solving riddles, are you not the best there is?" (2004: 532-533)
    Oedipus responds as follows:
    "Mock my excellence, but you will find out I am truly great." (2004: 534-535)
    From these quotations, it is evident that Oedipus is proud of his success in solving the Sphinx's riddle. But how did Oedipus arrive at the answer? You might judge that this is a pointless question, since his encounter with the Sphinx is surely a fiction and the myths and plays about him do not provide us with information about this matter. Nevertheless, we can try to imagine how he solved the riddle and that is what I shall try to do here.
    One possibility is that he realized the solution in a flash of inspiration. However, the Oedipus of Sophocles' play, when faced with another puzzle – who killed Laius, the former King of Thebes? – tries to proceed methodically. The most interesting accounts, I think, are ones which also represent Oedipus as trying to proceed methodically in the case of the Sphinx's riddle. But it is not obvious how one would go about arriving at the answer methodically and to my knowledge there have been no previous efforts to explain how. In this paper, I present two accounts of how Oedipus arrived at the answer.
    I present the first account as if Oedipus himself were providing us with it.  Here is the account. "When the Sphinx told me the riddle, I stared into space waiting for the answer to arrive, but no answer came into my mind. I then decided that the only methodical way to proceed would be to go through each kind of creature that I knew of in the hope of finding one which fits the description in the riddle. I began with the kind of creature that I am: a human being. I observed that a human being goes on twos, but it goes on twos in the morning, the afternoon and the night. I was about to consider another kind of creature when I thought to myself that there is a stage of life when human beings go on fours. But in that stage they go on fours whenever they go at all. I then set aside human beings and considered other kinds of being.
    But after I had gone through every kind of creature that I knew, I still had no answer. I reasoned that there were two possibilities: either the answer is a kind of creature unknown to me or else the riddle has no answer. There are some strange kinds of creature in the world. Before me was one of them: a creature with the head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle and the tail of a serpent. Some other strange kinds of creature might not be known to me. So I could not rule out the first possibility. But I had no choice except to work with the knowledge I already had, which was little more than average. So I began to consider the second possibility.
    Could it be that this riddle has no answer? That would make it no riddle at all. The only way in which I was ever going to make progress, I realized, is if I had grounds to reject the conclusion I had come to: that either the answer is a kind of creature unknown to me or the riddle has no answer. But how could I reject this conclusion, since I had considered every kind of creature that I knew? I took this question seriously. It occurred to me that there was a way of rejecting it. I had assumed that the description in the riddle was meant to be taken literally. The only way forward was to abandon that assumption.
    The possible metaphorical interpretations struck me as potentially endless. But I am a determined person and was made even more determined by recognizing an oversight in my reasoning. I returned to the kind of creature that I am: a human being. That was the closest I had come to solving the riddle. I realized that 'morning' in the Sphinx's question could refer to the early stage of human life, 'afternoon' to the adult years prior to old age, and 'night' to old age, when a human being often uses a walking stick. That was how I solved the riddle."
    You might think that any reasonably intelligent person who makes the observations Oedipus does about human beings would not set aside this kind of being and proceed to consider other kinds. They would regard the observations as so promising that they would search for ways of interpreting the description in the riddle so that human beings fit the description. That brings us to the second account. It begins in exactly the same way as the first account, but when Oedipus makes these observations, he looks for a way of interpreting the description so that there is a fit and thereby solves the riddle.
        In both accounts, there are three crucial steps that Oedipus takes towards solving the riddle. First, he decides to proceed by carefully considering each kind of creature that he knows. Second, he notes that a human being (typically) moves on fours at an early stage of life and on twos later. Third, he realizes the possibility of a metaphorical interpretation of the description provided in the riddle. Of course, taking these steps would not in itself be enough to solve the riddle, but we would expect a person who takes them and is determined to solve the riddle to arrive at the solution.
        In Sophocles' play, Oedipus talks as if most people would not be able to solve the riddle. In line with this appraisal, some commentators present Oedipus as a powerful intellect (e.g., Kitto 1950: 178; Segal 1981: 210; Knox 1998: 20). However, at least one commentator on Sophocles has called into question how great his achievement is. Philip Vellacott writes:
    "The Sphinx's riddle was not, after all, a very hard one; and Oedipus doubtless grew tired of being praised for ingenuity." (Vellacott 1964: 137)
    Presumably, when Vellacott says that the riddle is not a very hard one, he means to imply that if each person could somehow be presented with it, solving it would not be an uncommon feat. Even if there are grounds for saying that it is not that hard, I doubt that this implication is true, at least if the riddle presented is the one formulated at the beginning of this paper. (Some versions add that the being always has one voice, which is of no great help.) On both of the accounts given above, the solution arrives by first deciding to consider each kind of creature that one knows, carefully comparing it with the description provided in the riddle. I doubt that most people would bother to proceed in this way.
        Almost all people would begin by pausing for a bit, waiting for the answer to strike them. It is very difficult to obtain the answer like this, because whatever mental process is meant to deliver the answer will have to be sensitive to metaphorical interpretations. When the process does not deliver the answer, I think most people would either start guessing or give up. It is possible that they would wonder whether the answer is a human being and then, in a flash of inspiration, see that it fits. But I think it is unlikely that someone would focus on what is most near because there is a presumption that very familiar material gets ruled out when one pauses and waits for the answer to come.
        Vellacott also says that Oedipus would have tired of being praised for his ingenuity in solving the riddle. There are a number of objections to be made against this view or the grounds that are implied for it, but since the view is not directly connected to the topic of my paper, I shall make only one. The view is referring to the Oedipus of Sophocles' play Oedipus the King (1964: 137). The Oedipus in that play is a major source of praise for his ingenuity.


References
Kitto, H. 1950 (revised edition).Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study. London: Methuen.
Knox, B. 1998 (new edition). Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Segal, C. 1981. Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Sophocles (translated by I. Johnston). 2004. Oedipus the King. Accessed from:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/sophocles/oedipustheking.htm
Vellacott, P. H. 1964. The Guilt of Oedipus. Greece & Rome 11: 137-148.
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How many riddles did Oedipus solve?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper proposes that before the opening of Sophocles' play Oedipus the King, the "hero" had to solve a lot of riddles. That seems the best way of making sense of Tieresias's mocking remark that Oedipus is the best at solving riddles, rather than regarding it as based on a one-off success in solving the Sphinx's riddle.
Draft version: Version 2 (July 20th 2022, poem added).


No birds go near the Sphinx
To find out how she thinks—
They say her eagle wings
Must be aching things.


In Sophocles' play Oedipus the King, Oedipus boasts about his famous  riddle-solving feat. To the blind seer Tieresias, he says:
Her riddle was not something the first man to stroll along could solve – a prophet was required. And there the people saw your knowledge was no use – nothing from birds or picked up from the gods. But then I came, Oedipus, who knew nothing. Yet I finished her off, using my wits rather than relying on birds. (2004: 471-478)
He does not just boast here. He criticizes. He soon criticizes the blind man for speaking in riddles, to which Tieresias responds:
Well, in solving riddles, are you not the best there is? (2004: 532-533)
From this intense discussion, I imagine that it was not easy for Oedipus after he solved the Sphinx's riddle.
        To begin with, he was given a desk near some postgraduate researchers. People would come along to his desk and ask him how he got here. He would say, "I solved the riddle of the Sphinx." "What riddle of the Sphinx?" some of them would reply, "Never heard of it."
        Others would ask him how he solved it. When he explained his method, they would say, "Do you solve riddles like that? Don't you solve them by listening to birds and picking up messages from the gods? That is what Tieresias does." Yet others would say, "Anyone can get lucky once. Can you solve the following riddle…?" Oedipus ends up solving a lot of other riddles. That is what grounds his reputation that in solving riddles he is the best there is, not a one-off success. But these experiences leave him with a disposition to boast and promote his methods of riddle-solving, because various Theban intellectuals are likely to deny his achievements.
One of the few people who was respectful to him during that difficult time was Jocasta.


Reference
Sophocles (translated by I. Johnston). 2004. Oedipus the King. Accessed from:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/sophocles/oedipustheking.htm
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Myth and implication: why did Oedipus solve the Sphinx's riddle?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper presents an obvious explanation for why Oedipus even attempted to solve the Sphinx's riddle, given the high cost of failure: the Sphinx devoured those who attempt but fail. He thought attempting this was the best way to evade the prediction that he will kill his father and marry his mother.
Draft version: Version 3 (July 25th 2022).


When my riddle is solved
Love is dissolved.


In Robert Graves's telling, this is the Sphinx's riddle and her associated behaviour:
'What being, with only one voice, has sometimes two feet, sometimes three, sometimes four, and is weakest when it has the most?' Those who could not solve the riddle she throttled and devoured on the spot… (1960)
Graves later describes Oedipus as guessing the answer, a description I am not comfortable with. But leaving this aside, why did he even attempt the challenge at all, given the cost of failure?
        Here is the obvious response: he was trying to evade the prophecy that he would marry his mother but he was nevertheless interested in marrying and he felt that he could achieve both ends by entering this city guarded by the Sphinx. If he were to marry at all, this looks to be the safest place to do so. I have not seen this reasoning in presentations of the Oedipus myths, but perhaps the mythmaker or makers were of the opinion "We don't say that kind of stuff. Any intelligent person would work that out."
        I imagine that the Thebans themselves guessed why Oedipus entered into a battle of wits with the Sphinx. Then they found out what the mother he had left behind in Corinth looked like and just about every woman styled themselves like that. The Thebans were never convinced that Oedipus was good enough for them.




Reference
Graves, R. 1960 (revised edition). The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
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Why did Jocasta marry Oedipus?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. In this brief paper, I actually address two questions: "Why did the Thebans not solve the riddle before Oedipus?" and the title question.


        According to the myth of Oedipus, the Sphinx guarded the entrance to the city of Thebes. To enter the city, one has to solve her riddle and if a person attempted to do so but failed, then she devoured them. Oedipus came to the city and solved it. After that, the Sphinx killed herself and he married Jocasta, who unfortunately turned out to be his mother. He is famous for the intellectual feat, but one commentator does not sound impressed:
The Sphinx's riddle was not, after all, a very hard one; and Oedipus doubtless grew tired of being praised for ingenuity. (Vellacott 1964: 137)
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the commentator is right. But then we are left with a question: why did the Thebans not solve the riddle themselves? Surely in a successful city like Thebes there is at least one person clever enough to solve it. Here is one answer: "Well, it is not such a good myth."
        But there is another answer, or at least a background fiction that we can construct instead of devaluing the myth. In various fields, if you are a high achieving person you seem to be able to get "a prize spouse." My apologies for this, but I am going to focus on the phenomenon from a heterosexual male point of view, partly because of the content of the play. A very talented sportsman is often able to attract a very beautiful wife, at least by conventional standards, and likewise a very successful businessman, and so forth. Plausibly this is a way of maintaining high standards within a nation or field. You want such a beauty as a wife, then you need to achieve to that level. And let us suppose that this practice existed in ancient times as well. If a man solves the riddle of the Sphinx and communicates the solution and thereby liberates Thebes, he is entitled to the most beautiful woman in the city. But let us further suppose that this is Jocasta, the wife of Laius, the official ruler. Laius is probably going to kill or maim whoever solves the riddle. Consequently, some males privately solved the riddle but they dared not say so.
        Laius himself cannot solve it, so he leaves the city to seek help. The Thebans are expecting that the Sphinx will let him back in, solution in hand or not. But he is killed while on the road. Oedipus arrived, solved the riddle and then news of Laius's death reached Thebes. Now given our background fiction above, we can also propose an answer to another question: why did Jocasta marry Oedipus? She is aware of the prophecy that she will marry her son. But she is also aware of this informal rule – that the man who solves the riddle is entitled to the most beautiful woman in the city as his wife – and she judges that the value of the incest taboo is not as high as the value of this rule. Closely connected to its value for maintaining standards, she marries as a message to any self-interested people who privately solved it: if you had been less cowardly and spoken, you would now be king.
        Unfortunately, this overall fiction requires that we say that no woman or homosexual man has solved the riddle, or else construct some disincentive for them, for example that Laius will observe the homosexual man and think, "Is this fellow really homosexual? It is best to be the safe side." He does not like the idea of a woman being entitled to his wife either!


Reference
Vellacott, P. H. 1964. The Guilt of Oedipus. Greece & Rome 11: 137-148.
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Sophocles on trial: a case for devaluation


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I anticipate someone who dismisses Sophocles as mere literary craftsperson of high skill, arguing that such craftspeople turn up generationally and the credit should go to the mythmakers.
Draft version: version 1 (30th July 2022)


—The world is better today we know
From tragedies of long ago


        How good is Sophocles? Apparently he was regarded as a classic from the start (Easterling 2006: 1). But there is a case against holding him in such high esteem. Suddenly, and strangely, I feared someone would attribute the case to me. Then I feared they would do so in a mocking dialogue, such as this.


Mythmaker 1: I came up with the riddle. One day it just occurred to me. I asked my friends, "Do you know what goes on all fours in the morning, twos later on?" It is a human being. Later I added on threes in the evening. It wasn't anyone else who came up with that.
Mythmaker 2: I came up with a story idea. One day it just occurred to me and I told my friends, "This guy Oedipus learns of the prophecy that he will marry his mother, so he leaves his mother and then he marries someone else, but she turns out to be his actual mother."
Me: I came up with lots of stuff. The steps by which Oedipus solves the riddle – well, at least the longer version with the dilemma – and the treatment of Oedipus after solving the riddle. We're mythmakers, but we don't get any recognition. It all goes to Sophocles.
Mythmaker 1: You don't think Sophocles is that great? 
Me: He is a very good literary craftsman. Oedipus the King: it's gripping to read. But good craftsmen or craftspeople turn up in every generation – ever been to the movies? He needed the myths first and mythical material of this quality is rare.
Mythmaker 1: Movies? But Sophocles has been around for centuries.
Me: You don't even have a name and you're standing up for him!
Mythmaker 2: So he should not be allowed at this table with us?
Me: We can allow him here, as long as we sing this song: craftsman craftsman, should have been a raftsman!


This is not my point of view. To begin with, it makes the other mythmakers seem like wholesome respectable fellows. I am not convinced by that. Look, another mythmaker is sitting down (if I even qualify as a mythmaker amongst such people):


Mythmaker 4: Guys, I have got a new story concept. There is a character, Joedipus, and there is a prophecy that he will marry his mother, so he leaves her. And he marries someone else. But that was a mistake. His wife is so bad that it would actually be better to marry his mother, like I did!


Anyway, I wonder: is this dismissive perspective on Sophocles discussed by academics – he is merely a very good literary craftsman; such craftspeople turn up in each generation; the main credit should go to the mythmakers – and what do classicists have to say against the dismissal? It has surely occurred to others before.


Reference
Easterling, P.E. 2006. Sophocles: the first thousand years. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 2006 No. 87: 1-15.
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What is a classic from the start?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward        
Abstract. P.E. Easterling presents a brief description of the life of Sophocles according to which he was "evidently a classic from the start." I note a concern about the description: that all classics would seem to be classics from the start (though we may not know this in some cases), because a classic is a work that can stand the test of time.
Draft version: Version 2 (12th December 2022)


        P.E. Easterling's "Sophocles: The First Thousand Years" early on presents us with a somewhat familiar biography of Sophocles. Easterling writes:
Sophocles was evidently a classic from the start: his plays were outstandingly successful in the drama competitions of Athens in his lifetimes, and some were securely established in the "international" repertoire after his death, even if Euripides did gradually overtake him in the popularity stakes. (2006: 1)
I like this expression "a classic from the start." However, I find the concept of a classic from the start difficult to make sense of. I suppose if something is a classic, then it can stand the test of time. But if that is a necessary and sufficient condition, then is it not the case that all classics are classics from the start? It is just that perhaps this is not known in some cases. In which case, the concept of a classic from the start does not seem of much use.
        So this is the puzzle:
1. If the concept of a classic from the start is to have value, then it must apply to some classics and not others.
2. A classic is a work that can stand the test of time.
3. All classics have this quality from when they appear.
Perhaps there is an alternative idea of a classic as accepted by "people of that kind." And people of that kind, whatever the details, accepted Sophocles from the performance of his first play. But if they do not accept some works at one stage and do later, there is a question of whether they should determine what a classic is. (I am not saying that he was not a classic from the start. I am just puzzling over this notion. Some works take time to digest. Is the crucial work for Easterling "evidently"? Evidently a classic from the start versus not evidently a classic from the start, rather than classic from the start versus not classic from the start. I am not sure that helps! Who are these classics-determiners, by the way?)
        Even without this alternative (2) seems wrong, or in need of reformulation if we are close to the end of history. I shall leave the complicated investigation of that for another occasion.


Reference
Easterling, P. 2006. Sophocles: the first thousand years. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 87: 1-15.
________________
Handbook battles, H.J. Rose versus Robert Graves: a lesson in common ground


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper proposes that there is common ground between H.J. Rose's A Handbook of Greek Mythology and Robert Graves's The Greek Myths, in that both seem to think that it is a bad idea to meet a certain demand: to provide a handbook that is reliable, easy to consult, and suitable for students of certain literary tastes.
Draft version: Version 1 (29th July 2022).


What have I mistook?
Says the picture on this book.


        The preface to H.J. Rose's A Handbook of Greek Mythology opens with the following sentence:
As a teacher of Classics I have often felt handicapped by the lack of a book of moderate length, containing an accurate account of Greek mythology, in accordance with the results of modern research. (1989: vii)
Rose's handbook has an introduction which is conveniently divided into numbered sections specifying different theories of what myths are: the allegorical theory; the nature forces theory; etc. But when Rose begins actually telling myths, one gets chapters which are undivided. Chapter 3, "The Children of Kronos," is more than twenty pages in the edition I have, with about 480 words per page, and there is no division into sections concerned with one child and then another. That is not very convenient for quickly locating material.
        Robert Graves's popular The Greek Myths is conveniently divided into short sections and I find it much easier to consult. But its reputation amongst specialists is that it is very unreliable. Graves just makes up bits of myth, which sound as if they could come from an ancient source but no known ancient source says that. And there is no warning that this is what he is doing (Dimock 1955: 450; Ihm 2015: 166-167.). Rose criticizes Graves for "romantic interpolations and sentimentalities of his own divising, legitimate enough in a work of imagination, but quite out of place in a handbook of mythology" (1955: 208). Dimock complains, "This sort of thing makes a great trap for the unwary…" (1955: 450)
        The debate between Rose and Graves has attracted some interest, with Rose described as merciless and also sniffy (Weisinger 1956: 244; Zajko 2015: 196). Graves meanwhile has been criticized for declaring that his is the first comprehensive handbook since 1844, overlooking Rose's effort, first published in 1928 (Weisinger 1956: 235; Macpherson 1958: 18). This seems a minor complaint compared to just making up stuff but it is part of a portrait of severe opposition. I think that portrait is misleading. From the decisions of both authors, it seems there is remarkable common ground. I suspect they both agree on a counterintuitive proposition. Here is a first statement of this proposition:
(Rookie error) There are students who want a readable, easy to consult, academically reliable handbook of mythology, suitable for their literary tastes and also their attention spans, which are probably slightly above average. For those capable of providing that desired handbook, it is a mistake to do so.
The literary tastes I have in mind are not too demanding or unorthodox, by the way. Probably some of my papers meet their tastes, in terms of writing style. But why is it a mistake to provide such a book? I don't know. That is what I would have tried to do if I set out on this project of making a mythology handbook! Here are some explanations, none of which I have sufficient evidence to endorse – there are others.
        Top down management. One answer is that the world of English letters – I mean the world of English writings accorded some literary merit – is managed, and it is managed like this: anyone with the talent to provide the desired handbook should actually be doing more creative work. If some people find out that you are attempting such a book with a good chance of success, you will be provided with incentives against doing so; and if you succeed in the aim you will somehow be punished. (I wonder whether such a book will even produce a disgust reaction, despite everything appearing to be as it should be. It looks as if everything is in place, but actually your talent is not.)
        "Undiscriminating" reviewer. Such a handbook is likely to contain some mistakes. And unless the work is perfect, it is likely to encounter an influential reviewer who treats it in the same way as Graves's effort. Either everything is exactly right or the reviewer dismisses the work, owing to inaccuracies. The reviewer has little sense that, as far as handbooks go, this is the best they can get. Everything else is severely faulty, in one respect or another.
        Unreasonable students. The official purpose of this handbook is teaching but the students one will attract if one provides the desired handbook are going to prove a problem. For example, one has to continuously meet their tastes, or they complain: "I thought it would always be like in the handbook!"
One might worry that the fate of such a book is probably to become a useful secret. It will never reach many others who could benefit from it. At the moment, I think that is a bit too pessimistic.


References
Dimock Jr., G.E. 1955. Robert Graves and Greek Mythology. The Hudson Review 8 (3): 449-455.
Graves, R. 1960 (revised edition). The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Ihm, S. 2015. Robert Graves's The Greek Myths and Matriarchy. In A.G.G. Gibson, Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Macpherson. J. 1958. Review article: The Greek Myths. Phoenix 12 (1): 15-25.
Rose, H.J. 1955. Review of Robert Graves: The Greek Myths. The Classical Review 5 (2): 208-209.
Rose, H.J. 1989 (reprinting the sixth edition of 1958). A Handbook of Greek Mythology. London: Routledge.
Weisinger, H. 1956. "A Very Curious and Painstaking Person" Robert Graves as Mythographer. Midwest Folklore 6 (4): 235-244.
Zajko, V. 2015. Scholarly Mythopoesis: Robert Graves's The Greek Myths. In A.G.G. Gibson, Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Why can't we see this controversy? Bruno Latour, Greek myths, local alternatives


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper proposes that a controversy has been omitted from Robert Graves's account of how the Greek myths became an established part of the British education system. When the Greek myths were introduced into the English education system, people surely opposed them as a foreign product. I address a question which the secondary literature on Bruno Latour invites: why can't we see this controversy? Two reasons are speculatively identified. 
Draft version: Version 3 (8th November 2022, "traveler")


The only homeware shop open tonight is the sky
With fluffy cushions for sale
And a large bright lamp


        Behold the opening to the introduction to Robert Graves's famously unreliable The Greek Myths:
The mediaeval emissaries of the Catholic Church brought to Great Britain, in addition to the whole corpus of sacred history, a Continental university system based on the Greek and Latin Classics. Such native legends as those of King Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, the Blue Hag of Leicester, and King Lear were considered suitable enough for the masses, yet by early Tudor times the clergy and the educated classes were referring far more frequently to the myths in Ovid, Virgil, and the grammar school summaries of the Trojan War. (Graves 1960)
As mentioned before, I believe that the Greek myths did not acquire an established place in education systems here without opposition (Edward 2022). There would have been people who said, "If you like those kinds of stories, we can provide some like that. You should prioritize local goods over foreign ones." Graves has omitted the opposition from his account. Now an interesting question from the secondary literature on a French philosopher of science, who recently passed away, is "Why can't we see controversies?" (2005: 287) I shall give two speculative reasons for why we cannot see this opposition to the "invading" Greek myths.
1. Oral literature. I speculate that a lot of the attempts to compete were oral rather than written. They were not written down because the expert audience did not regard them as good enough to compete against the Greek myths. That makes the opposition there was harder to detect. For example, there were conversations like this.
Mythmaker: I've got a myth. Once I swam to the bottom of a lake and there was a mermaid there. And the mermaid said, "Can you bring me some gold coins and I shall love you forever?" So I swam back up and I asked a peasant woman where I could get some gold coins. And she said "They are buried by that tree." So I dug a hole there until I found the coins. But then the tree fell and broke my arm. And I could not swim back down to the mermaid!
Critic 1: It's not good enough.
Critic 2: I doubt the Cyclops and the Centaurs will be shaking in their boots over this!
        2. Nationalism versus nationalism. I have read some Italian literature from the second half of the twentieth century and if you ask me what the best thing I have read is, it is an imitation of some Japanese literature, whatever its flaws as imitation (Calvino 1981). I cannot say why the pastiche was written, save perhaps for its literary function within a book, but the thought of its being the best is helpful for realizing a problem. Imagine, a few centuries back, someone from broadly nationalist or tribal reasons trying to produce Greek-like myths: so that the Greek myths themselves do not become established in their culture and yours. But you don't want the alternatives to displace the literature which is your main national kind, around which your identity is based: a kind which is irregular in form and manifests an unusual sense of humour, say. But this seems a near impossible combination:
1. The local Greek-like alternatives to Greek myths must be good enough to compete with the originals.
2.  They must not be so good as to outshine the kind of storytelling works regarded as "our kind."
I have cautiously said, "This seems a near impossible combination," but if we imagine ambitious literary contributors of the time, many must have noticed the advertisement to oppose the Greek myths by producing local alternatives but avoided the task, in the belief that (a) and (b) simply are an impossible combination. That explains, or partly explains, why the controversy is so hidden. Seasoned professionals must have mostly thought, "What they are actually after is not doable," and left the job to literary backwoodsmen, apologies for the prejudiced term. The efforts of such people are probably more likely to disappear from the record or not reach wider audiences.


References
Calvino, I. (translated by W. Weaver) 1981. If on a winter's night a traveler. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Edward, T.R. 2022. On the exhaustion criterion of difficulty, with Wittgenstein, Robert Graves, and Kripke. Available at: https://philpapers.org/rec/EDWOTE
Graves, R. 1960 (revised edition). The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Martin, A. 2005. Agents in Inter-Action: Bruno Latour and Agency. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12 (4): 283-311.
________________
Madness at the centre: on Descartes' first meditation turned into a dialogue


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. Charles Larmore presents the central part of Descartes' first meditation as a brief dialogue between a skeptic and a sensible empiricist. I point out a source of discontent about this innovative transformation.
Draft version: Version 1 (June 3rd 2022).


        Introduction. The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations contains a paper by Charles Larmore entitled "The First Meditation: skeptical doubt and certainty." There he attempts the feat of presenting the main steps in the central part of Descartes' first meditation as a dialogue. The dialogue is between a skeptic and a sensible empiricist. Taking the Cambridge translation of Descartes' meditations as our "original" text, there is at least one source of discontent about Larmore's effort to turn the meditation into a dialogue, which I aim to present.
        The dialogue opens with the empiricist declaring that we can have knowledge based on sense experience. The skeptic replies that our sensory experiences of small distant objects are sometimes misleading (we sometimes experience them as having qualities that they do not have). The empiricist replies by retreating from this territory: at least our sensory experiences of medium-sized objects are reliable. At this point, it is necessary for me to quote the dialogue, instead of paraphrasing.
Skeptic: What of the possibility that you are mad?
Empiricist: I would be mad even to consider that possibility.
Skeptic: Still, you must acknowledge that in the past you have mistaken dreams for veridical perceptions. In fact, there are no sure signs by means of which dream perceptions can be distinguished from waking ones. How can you rule out the possibility that any perception of some close, medium-sized object is actually a dream? (2014: 56)
It is this part which I shall focus on, in fact the first two sentences.


Opinions of others. Let us call the skeptic's attempt to generate doubt by likening a person to the mad as madness doubt. Here is the passage in which Descartes introduces madness doubt and presents a reason for rejecting it:
Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. But such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself. (1996 [1642]: 13)
The last sentence of this quotation presents a reason for rejecting madness doubt: "I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself."
        Compare this with what Larmore's empiricist says: "I would be mad even to consider that possibility."  A striking difference here is that Larmore's empiricist rejects madness doubt because he would be mad to pursue it, whereas Descartes' narrator is concerned about the opinions of others. He does not want to be thought mad. (I assume that he means thought mad by others!)
Let us call the reason in the Cambridge translation, when taken literally, "the literal reason":
(The literal reason) Descartes would be thought equally mad if he took anything from the mad as a model for himself, including likening himself to the mad as a way of doubting his own beliefs. 
Why has Larmore departed from the literal reason? Perhaps he thought he could improve on Descartes slightly. Here we can imagine a dialogue of our own.
Cambridge-Descartes: I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from the mad as a model for myself, including likening myself to the mad as a way of doubting my own beliefs.
Larmore: That is not a good enough reason.
Cambridge-Descartes: Why not?
Larmore: Either the beliefs of others about whether you are mad are reliable or they are unreliable. If they are unreliable, then you should not care whether they think you mad or not. But if they are reliable, then your worry is that you would be thought mad by others if you took anything from the mad as a model for yourself and this thought of theirs would be reliable. But why not simply say that it would be mad for you to take anything from the mad as a model for yourself? There is no gain from introducing reliable others who would regard you as mad and it makes everything so complicated.
This is an interesting argument from the Larmore side for dropping any reference to the opinions of others when Descartes presents his reason against pursuing madness doubt. However, there is a response which someone in favour of the literal reason might offer. 
"The sentence in the text expressing the literal reason has two functions," says this respondent. "One function is to express this reason. But there is also a hidden function: to provide evidence that Descartes is not as mad as the people he refers to. One of the qualities of the mad is that they are insensitive to the opinions of others." For example – here I am extending Descartes' example – you say to a person who believes he is wearing a purple robe, "Are you mad? You are naked"; but he ignores you. He is insensitive to your concern that he is mad (he does not care if you think that) and your belief that he is naked (he does not engage with it, by asking about your evidence say, rather he assumes his contrary belief is right). Descartes, in contrast, is sensitive to the opinions of others. That is evidence for his sanity
A source of discontent with the Larmore dialogue then is that he drops reference to the opinions of others and it is unclear that this is a good idea. Reference to how he would be thought of is plausibly performing some other function than expressing a reason for rejecting madness doubt. Is there good enough reason to depart this much from the Cambridge translation, taken literally? 
 
References
Descartes, R. (translated and edited by J. Cottingham, with an introductory essay by Bernard Williams) 1996. Meditations on First Philosophy, with Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Larmore, C. 2014. The First Meditation: skeptical doubt and certainty. In D. Cunning (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
________________
The first meditation again: a hidden source of doubt?
 
Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I raise the question of whether there is a hidden source of doubt in Descartes' first meditation, if one adopts the perspective of some people he describes as insane. They are invited to meditate seriously along with him, to begin with, but they soon find that their perspectives are dismissed, which casts doubt on how trustworthy the narrator is.
Draft version: Version 1 (June 24th 2022).


Consider this passage from early on in Descartes' first meditation:
Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. But such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself.
Here Descartes distinguishes himself from the insane.
        But won't some insane readers feel excluded, for example someone who believes their head is made of earthenware? "In the preface, you asked me to meditate along with you, for I too am a serious reader, and now you are saying that my beliefs are insane and implying that the rest of the meditations are not for me. Why have you done this, you deceptive character?" Descartes is famous for raising doubts about whether one is dreaming or being deceived by a demon. My question is whether there is a hidden source of doubt at this point. If one takes up a certain perspective when reading the text, the experience of being invited into the entrance hall of this philosophical house and then dismissively treated creates doubt about the trustworthiness of the narrator. (To avoid this, he should have been more specific in his preface to readers: "you must not only be willing to meditate seriously with me, but also…" Descartes does say something more but not enough to prevent readers who understandably feel deceived at this point.)


Reference
Descartes, R. (translated and edited by J. Cottingham, with an introductory essay by B. Williams) 1996. Meditations on First Philosophy, with Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
________________
Why does Descartes say that he is not his body in the second meditation?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper contests a standard interpretation of how Descartes comes to the conclusion that he is not his body in the second meditation. I propose an alternative interpretation in its place.
Draft version: version 16 (12th September 2020, version 1 on 15th June 2014)


        In the second meditation of his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes searches for a belief that he cannot doubt. He thinks that he cannot doubt his belief that he exists.  The reason why he thinks he cannot doubt this belief is because if he is doubting, then he must exist. Having found this indubitable belief, Descartes then goes on to ask a question: what does the "I" in his proposition "I exist" refer to? He comes to the conclusion that it does not refer to his body. The purpose of this paper is to explain how he comes to this conclusion.
        1. The standard interpretation. According to the standard interpretation of how he comes to this conclusion, Descartes deduces it from two premises. I have worded these premises as if Descartes himself were saying them: (1) if my body and I are the same thing, then my body and I have identical properties; (2) my body and I do not have identical properties. Therefore my body and I are not the same thing.
It is understandable to find premise (1) of this argument true, or at least very plausible. But why does Descartes accept premise (2)? The standard interpretation says that Descartes accepts this premise because he thinks that he can doubt the existence of his body but not the existence of himself. According to the standard interpretation, Descartes thinks, "My body has the property of being something whose existence I can doubt. I cannot, in contrast, doubt the existence of myself. So my body and I do not have identical properties." (Why does Descartes think that he can doubt the existence of his body? He thinks this because he thinks that the evidence he has for the existence of his body is from experiences of perceiving his body and that he can doubt that any perceptual experiences, including these ones, reveal how reality actually is.[1])
        An article on the interpretation of Descartes identifies different philosophers who propose the interpretation presented above or a variation on it.[2] The interpretation is attractive because it provides an explanation of how Descartes moves from two commitments of his to the conclusion that he is not his body. First, there is his view that he can doubt the existence of his body. Second, there is his view that he cannot doubt the existence of himself.
        However, there is a major worry about the standard interpretation. At no point in the second meditation does Descartes say anything along the lines of "The reason why I am not my body is because my body and I have different properties." If Descartes really were making the argument attributed to him by the standard interpretation, it is reasonable to expect a statement to this effect. Since Descartes does not make such a statement, the standard interpretation is a speculation. There is not enough evidence to support it.
        2. An alternative interpretation. To understand why Descartes says that he is not his body in the second meditation, we need to go back to what he says in the first meditation. Descartes opens that meditation by saying that in his childhood, he formed a number of beliefs that are in fact false. He says that he feels it necessary to start again right from the foundations.[3] To start again, for Descartes, is to get rid of all the beliefs of his which he can doubt, even if some of those beliefs are true. Any beliefs that are left will be a solid foundation, from which further beliefs can be inferred.
But Descartes finds it difficult to get rid of all the beliefs of his that he can doubt:
My habitual opinions keep coming back, and despite my wishes, they capture my belief, which as it were bound over to them as a result of long occupation and the law of custom.[4]
It is his habit to have certain beliefs, even if he can doubt them, so he finds it hard to stop having these dubitable beliefs. To overcome this problem, Descartes decides to treat any belief that he can doubt as if the belief were false:
I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams… I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things.[5]
Maybe there are all the things which Descartes lists here, but he decides to treat belief in these things as false for the purpose of overcoming a habit of his, a habit that is an obstacle to starting again.
        This material from the first meditation enables us to understand why Descartes, in the second meditation, denies that he is his body. In the second meditation, after coming to the conclusion that he exists, Descartes says that it is important to develop a better understanding of what the "I" refers to in his proposition "I exist." He recalls that he used to think of himself as his body. But given that he can doubt the existence of his body and given that he has decided to treat every belief that he can doubt as if it were false, he cannot now say that he is his body. Given these two points, he must treat his body as if it does not exist. Hence he says that he is not his body.
        If we turn to the second meditation, we find that Descartes reasons in this way. He writes:
Can I now assert that I possess even the most insignificant of all the attributes which I just said belong to the nature of the body? … Since I now do not have a body, these are mere fabrications.[6]
Of course, Descartes had a body when he wrote the second meditation, but here he is treating his body as not existing, which is something he must do as part of treating every belief that he can doubt as false. In the second meditation, it is this way of treating beliefs which prevents him from saying that he is his body.
        3. Remarks on the alternative interpretation. There are four remarks I wish to make regarding the alternative interpretation, which I have labelled A to D.
A. The interpretation that I have offered does not present Descartes as arguing that he should think that he is something other than his body even after he stops treating every belief that he can doubt as if it were false. The interpretation does not say that Descartes argues for the following claim: 
What he is = what he should say he is while treating every belief that he can doubt as if it were false.
B. Descartes does not argue for this claim in the second meditation. [7]
C. Without arguing for this claim, the material in the second meditation on what "I" refers to seems of limited interest for the question of whether a person is their body or not.
D. I believe that Descartes was aware that the material in the second meditation does not establish that he should think that he is something other than his body after he stops treating every belief that he can doubt as if it were false. But here I will not try to support this belief about Descartes. (His arguments for thinking this are made in the sixth meditation, not the second.)


References
Descartes, R. (translated and edited by J. Cottingham) 1996. Meditations on First Philosophy, with Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Downey, J.P. 2002. Descartes's Real Argument. Ratio 15: 1-9.
Maslin, K.T. 2007 (second ed.) An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Polity.
Smith, P. and Jones, O.R. 1986. The Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
________________
The problem of the poor king, from Descartes and Rousseau


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. In this paper, I present the problem of the poor king, from combining Descartes and Rousseau.
Draft version: version 1 (24th April 2022)


        One evening I was thinking about something Descartes wrote, which involves kings and madness, and then about something Rousseau wrote, which also involves kings and madness, and a problem occurred to me, which I wish to present. I am not sure that it is a very important problem, but it is a problem. I call it "The problem of the poor king." But before coming to the problem, I find it necessary to disambiguate.
Early on in the first meditation of his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes briefly considers likening himself to the mad as a way of doubting his belief that the two hands he observes are his:
Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. But such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself.
I was going to confidently object to Descartes, but then I noticed an ambiguity in this translation: "they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers." That could be intended to convey that they believe they are kings but they are paupers and this fact undermines their belief to the point where it is delusional, to which I object, "Kings can be paupers too." Or, alternatively, being or becoming paupers causes them to believe they are kings and this is insane, to which I say, "Yes, the mere fact of being a pauper should not cause that belief."
        I suspect the first interpretation is right. Let us assume it is. Perhaps Descartes would have responded to my objection by saying, "Yes, it is logically possible for you to be a king and be a pauper, but it is highly probable, so improbable that these people must be insane to believe that this possibility is realized."
It is time to introduce the problem. Let us imagine that you believe you are a king despite being a pauper. You want to convince Descartes, or at least some Cartesians, that you are sane. You don't belong on his list of madmen, with such people as someone who believes they are a pumpkin, do you? So you try to make some money.
You are living in a country where Descartes' meditations are very influential. So also are the writings of Rousseau. Now Rousseau also writes about kings and madness, when responding to a largely forgotten philosopher, and ambiguity too. He does so early on in chapter 4 of book 1 of The Social Contract. Rousseau writes:
If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining…
Leaving aside the issue of ambiguity, Rousseau's reply is that an individual cannot do what this philosopher says, because that would be mad and the contract would be invalid owing to madness:
…such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right.
That is all the material we need from Rousseau – we will be setting aside the theme of voluntary slavery, at least explicitly.
        The problem you face is this:
1. You aim to convince people in the country you live in that you are not mad.
2. You cannot deny that you are a king – lying is beneath your station – or withhold this information, which would also mislead others.
3. Owing to the influence of Descartes, as soon as you declare you are a king, you are regarded as mad because you are a pauper
4. Owing to the influence of Rousseau, you cannot then make a valid contract, so you cannot make any money. 
I suppose a solution is: respond to (d) by recommending that a person should be able to make a certain contract even if they are mad as long as to sign this particular contract would not itself be evidence of madness.


References
Descartes, R. (translated and edited by J. Cottingham) 1996 (originally 1642). Meditations on First Philosophy, with Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rousseau, J.J. (translated by G.D.H. Cole) 1913 (originally 1762). Social Contract & Discourses. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company.
________________
A war of all against all? The close up problem 


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper presents a problem for a prisoner's dilemma model according to which the state of nature would be a war of all against all, which I call "the close up problem." When you two people encounter each other more closely, will not each realize that the other is prepared for violence and then will not each avoid the other, so as to best survive?
Draft version: Version 1 (May 26th 2022).


        What would life be like in the state of nature? In other words, what would life be like without a government and legal system to enforce rights and resolve disputes? Hobbes famously said that it would be a war of all against all, and there is a prisoner's dilemma model which supports this contention, though it is a mystery who devised it (Gauthier 1967: 468? Not quite). Person A and person B are approaching each other in the state of nature. There are two options: approach peacefully or attack. Both could approach peacefully. However, if one person aims to attack while the other approaches peacefully, then the other will suffer injury and lose their property. So the rational thing for each party to do, given the risk that the other will attack, is to attack. The loss of property is less, but the result is a war of all against all, in the sense of each individual being involved in conflicts and potentially with any other individual. (This is not exactly the sense Hobbes has in mind, by the way, defining it rather in terms of a known disposition to fight. See 1651: chapter 13.)
        A lovely model, or outline of one, but who devised it? And does it not suffer from a "close up problem"? You and I are approaching each other. The technology is not advanced. As we get closer, is it not going to be evident whose approach is peaceful and who is planning to attack? Approaching each other face to face, I think such plans will often be evident before the fighting or the fighting proper. "This person looks as if they want a fight!" or "This person just threw a stone in my direction. What an unpleasant character!" etc. And since we are both rational, we are both planning to attack. But given the costs of conflict, is it not rational, once these plans are evident, to avoid each other? If one does not have any recollections of fights, beyond surprise attacks, and perhaps whoever devised this model does not, just imagine a game, a computer game. You and some other individuals are, to begin with, distributed evenly in a territory. But of course you must search for food and so must they and occasionally your paths cross, or risk crossing. When the other is close enough and prepared to attack, it is evident by the colour of that character – they flash red upon the screen. After enough injuries you are dead. The aim is to survive. There is probably a lot of avoidance in this boring game. When pursuing the aim, there is a lot less conflict than anticipated by the model.


References
Gauthier, D.P. 1967. Morality and Advantage. The Philosophical Review LXXVI: 460-475.
Hobbes, T. 1651. Leviathan. London: Andrew Crooke.
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Determinism and a counterexample to the is-ought gap: a classic of analytic philosophy paper?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Abstract. I recently wrote a paper in which I imagined having a conversation with a friend (or conversational partner), in which I cast doubt on a description of a government policy recommendation: it is described as scientific but the argument for it is based on a value and a controversial one furthermore. I imagined not knowing Hume and him/his sitting down and explaining his is-ought gap: that you cannot validly derive a conclusion about what you ought to do purely from factual statements. I imagined finding it interesting, but soon moving on to other points I wish to make, not recognizing its wider significance. Well, is that better than what you would do? Here I replace the conversational partner I imagined with a lady philosopher. Doing so led me to a is-ought gap counterexample. "Everything we do is determined by the initial state of the universe, so it is not true that we ought to keep our promises. We are only morally responsible agents if there is free will."
Draft version: version 2 (28th October 2025 grammar corrections; version 1 on 18th October 2025)


"If your company he would keep,
David Hume ought not to sleep"


        I recently wrote a paper where I imagined having a conversation with a friend, or merely conversational partner perhaps. I am discussing a government policy recommendation. I object to a description of it and then David Hume, the Enlightenment philosopher, sits down - it is not a realistic fiction - and declares that the error I identify is an instance of a type of error: deriving an ought from an is. I am going to place a philosopher in the role of the person I am conversing with, although that is not what I originally imagined.


ME: This guy in parliament says that first cousin marriage should be banned because it is a health risk. Do you know first cousin marriage? It apparently spread from rural Pakistan to Muslim communities in the UK. This video I saw describes a health-based ban as the scientific policy, but the ban is not based on scientific fact alone: that these unions bring a risk of disorders. It is based on a value and a controversial value too: the value of protecting children's health over the value of freedom to marry whom one pleases.
LADYPHILOSOPHER: Well, when I think, "Is this science or not?" I just put on my philosophy of science hat and examine the question  using our best accounts of the science-pseudoscence distinction. Lisa Bortolotti has a good textbook.
ME: I have read her on delusions.
DAVIDHUME: Hello, my name is David Hume. I have been listening to your discussion with interest. The error you are identifying is an instance of a general type of error, widely made. A person presents themselves as inferring what we ought to do purely from what is the case: from some fact about health risk in this case. But you cannot correctly infer ought purely from is.
ME: Um, I am not sure if the politician themselves made the inference. It was the video commentary that described the politician's recommended policy as scientific. But it is an interesting point. Do you think it always holds?
LADYPHILOSOPHER: I am sure some philosophers would reject a conclusion about what we ought to do purely based on a factual premise. "Everything we do is determined by the initial state of the universe - it determined the next state, which determined the next state - so it is not true that we ought to keep our promises. We are only morally responsible agents if there is free will." Is that not a problem?


What I imagined is that I would record Hume's point as of interest in my collection of things found, but I would soon, in conversation and writing, move onto other things I want to say. A question I have is whether professional Humeans would do any better. This lady philosopher's response is devastating; BUT it was me who came up with it! Well, is it not already known in some private discussion club or other? Don't let me know in some terrifying way: a big YES on my computer screen, say! (By the way, rival politician Iqbal Mohammed recommends no ban but introducing genetic screening for couples at risk.)


References
Conversations with a lady philosopher.
Edward, T.R. 2025. On the reception of Hume's is-ought gap: an "empathetic" response but commonplace. Available at PhilPapers.
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How much credit do we give to Hume's readers on the is-ought gap: the blind review model versus the tribal model


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward (or 161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Abstract. Hume claims that there is an is-ought gap: one cannot validly infer what we ought to do from what is. This claim is important (or of interest) for several reasons, but without being led by others I would probably only detect two:  as identifying a general type of error and as a challenge: can you find counterexamples to it? Should we give a lot of credit to the receivers of Hume's thought then? They realized how important this stuff is. Perhaps not. I introduce two simple "models" of his reception: the blind review model imagines Hume's thought being received as if under ideal blind review - the receiver does not know or care for who wrote it - whereas the tribal receiver model says that the receiver thinks, "Hume is one of my people, my tribe, and I must do my best to promote his works, including finding as much importance in them as I can." I suspect much of the significance found in Hume is owing to reception of or like the latter kind.
Draft version: version 1 (27th October 2025).


Skate around this ice rink
But about our history do not think


        Some days ago, I was thinking about a government policy proposal which was described by a commentator as scientific. The proposal is that the government ought to ban marriage between first cousins on the grounds of health risk alone. Even if there is a scientifically established risk, I was not entirely comfortable with calling this policy scientific, because one has to appeal to the value of the government protecting against health risks as well as the scientifically-established fact. (By the way, not everyone will agree to prioritizing this value, over the freedom to marry whom one wishes.) Then I imagined not knowing anything about the great Enlightenment philosopher David Hume and his sitting down while I am conversing about this matter and saying, "This is an example of the is-ought gap. You cannot validly infer a conclusion about what we ought to do purely from what is." I wondered how receptive I would be to Hume's important point. Probably I would see some value in identifying a general type of error, rather than merely a specific instance, and also some value in his claim about what cannot validly be done as a challenge: can you find an example which is or seems incompatible with this claim? But Hume's is-ought gap is significant for a variety of other reasons:
* it is used to distinguish between positive and normative economics;
* it has been used to understand the nature of legal systems;
* it is sometimes characterized as the fact-value distinction and it is useful then for defining how people use "fact" in various contexts;
* there are probably philosophers who appeal to it when arguing that moral discourse does not state truths or falsehoods.
Thinking about all this, I am disposed to give quite a lot of credit to the receivers of Hume: the people who found more significance in Hume than I probably would. But I am probably working with a mistaken "model" of his reception. Maybe it is worth pointing out, in case you are disposed to work with it too. But something like the distinction between the two models below is NOT a new thought: the line of thought is perhaps never developed with this degree of clarity and with an example to illustrate it though. (Nevertheless, to some people this is probably still the early stages of development.) 
        Model 1: the blind review model. In the blind review model, Hume presents his idea that there is an is-ought gap in writing. Receivers read it without knowing who wrote this or what nation the author belongs to (or his race, etc.) or caring. They then work out the significance of it. As said before, I would probably only realize its significance as pointing out a general type of error and as a challenge: can one find counterexamples? Maybe you would be the same in blind review conditions; maybe even worse. But of course Hume was not received "blindly." People knew who he was and what nation he is from and more. However, when I am impressed by the receivers of Hume and all the significance they found in Hume, I don't take into account those differences, as if the added knowledge makes no difference!
Model 2: the tribal model. On the tribal model, a lot of Hume's readers regard Hume as "our people," even "our leading philosopher." And they are determined to make something of his work. This leads them to detect significances which they would not otherwise detect, for example if Hume was some guy in a city in a faraway country who wrote in to the newspapers with his is-ought gap idea. People think, "Hume is one of our people. Let's try to build some economics on his thinking," or "Hume is one of our people, let's develop some moral philosophy on the foundations he laid." On this model, it is questionable whether the receivers deserve so much credit. And perhaps there are some other items of comparable significance but far less known, because they are not said by "our people."


References
Edward, T.R. 2025. On the reception of Hume's is-ought gap: an "empathetic" response but commonplace. Available on PhilPapers.
Hume, D. 1739-40. A Treatise of Human Nature. Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/t/
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Has everything on Adam Smith been written? A model and a counterargument


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward                        
Abstract. I respond to Nuno Palma's suggestion, made in 2008, that we are approaching the day in which nothing new can be said about Adam Smith. I think that is unlikely. The paper presents a model to support the suggestion. To illustrate my counterargument, I focus on the problem of Adam Smith's apparently contradictory claims about the effects of the division of labour on character.
Draft version: Version 4 (10th October 2022, reference date correction).


        Introduction. An article addressing historians of economics "ends" with the following sentences:
Historians of economics can be as much the guardians of the future as the keepers of the past. But for this to happen, intellectual isolation from the mainstream cannot continue. Let's face it: a day will come when Adam Smith will have nothing new to say. But Robert Lucas has. (2008: 103)
A significant amount of history of economics research is focused on the famous Scottish economist, or moral philosopher, and there is a suggestion that this day of exhaustion is coming soon, within ten years of the time of writing. That is what the author, Nuno Palma, is suggesting.
        At present I am not convinced by this suggestion, despite the table with numbers of articles on Adam Smith and the percentage of articles in leading journals. Elsewhere comparable claims are made about other figures with large secondary literatures which also do not convince me (e.g. Clarke 1863: 3; Miller 1977: 542), but I shall focus on Palma and Smith below.[8] The suggestion seems to be inferred from these two premises, with X appropriately filled in.
1. If there are X-number of articles on Adam Smith and article production on this figure continues at its present rate, then there will be nothing new to say within ten years.
2. There are X-number of articles on Adam Smith and article production on this figure will continue at its present rate.
Therefore (by modus ponens):
3. There will be nothing new to say on Adam Smith within ten years.
The first premise is true for some X, on these assumptions:
(Newness assumption) Each writer of a text on Adam Smith has to say something new on this topic.
(Textual limit assumption) There is a limit to the number of new things that can be said on Adam Smith, owing to the nature of texts by him. 
Let us grant these assumptions and that Adam Smith article production will continue at its present rate (or will continue as long as there is consistency with these assumptions). But what is this X-number and are we anywhere near reaching it,[9] or what range of numbers can be used to make the argument sound, or what example numbers, etc.? One hundred or two hundred or two thousand or two hundred thousand or what? Below I am going to leave aside the argument above and introduce my own argument, which leads to a very different conclusion.
My argument. The argument I shall offer, or counterargument, does not have the professional appearance of the one above, being based largely on my experience. In my experience most research communities cannot get someone to apply certain skills for them (e.g. Strathern 1987: 278). A leading figure thinks, "I would like a researcher who has these skills and these character qualities," but nobody has that combination and one decides not to tolerate people with the skills specified but with other character qualities, perhaps sometimes instead preferring people who merely appear to have the skills to non-experts.[10] From reading various works on Adam Smith, such as The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, I see no reason to regard the Adam Smith research community as any different. Even if researchers soon stop writing on Adam Smith, there might be work which has not been covered, because the community of Adam Smith researchers, if they can be described as a community, a single community, do not include such a researcher. I think that is probably the case.
An illustration. Take Adam Smith's supposed contradiction that specialization makes people more intelligent and more stupid (West 1983: 163-164). To evaluate this contradiction, it makes sense to try to define what it is to be specialized and not specialized, or non-specialized for short. Here is a definition.
A human being is non-specialized if and only if:
1. They have the abilities required to meet all their needs without trade with others.
2. They use these abilities to meet all their needs.
3. In any economy with a division of labour, they are unable to gain employment, owing to a current lack in their abilities – perhaps the lack can be overcome with training.
But condition (iii) looks too demanding. Can they not engage in unskilled labour, as it is described with some political incorrectness? That question encourages a revision of (iii):
(iii*) In any economy with a division of labour, they are unable to gain employment except by means of unskilled labour, owing to a current lack in their abilities. 
But do we not also want to be more specific about the setting where these survival abilities are realized, so that the conditions exclude being on a comfortable spaceship where food is provided at the press of a button? The thought is that they have these abilities in a Robinson Crusoe-like setting. ("In a novel?")
Anyway, this entire line of definition may be unsuited to the problem we are focusing on. When Adam Smith says that specialization causes stupidity, he is comparing a person after training with before. There is a regular pattern he observes, leading him to make a causal claim, or so I presume: intelligence before, then training, then stupidity after. The non-specialist, or less specialized person, we are interested in is plausibly a child. Has anyone provided the alternative non-specialized person definition? No? But the problem has apparently often been commented on (Rosenberg 1965: 127). Of course, the community of Adam Smith researchers does attract philosophers, but probably not some kinds or enough to cover all relevant material.
        Conclusion. I think most research communities, probably all, would like to get some work done but they cannot attract the people with the skills, given other preferences which they expect to be met – I have focused on character qualities. Whoever does this work really well does not go near you, or does not in normal conditions, or did briefly and decided it was a bad idea and signaled this to all their friends; or in rare cases they go near but you will not accept them without various unlikely changes. The size of some secondary literatures disguises that the massive expansion has only been in some directions. To be convinced that exhaustion is approaching, I think it sensible to ask for some other argument apart from one focused on the sheer number of articles. When I was in my early 20s, a girl said to me, "I can attract any man I want!" It was a memorable line, boldly said, but thinking about it carefully I am not sure about its truth, and I don't believe in the Adam Smith research community's powers of attraction either, not yet anyway! And that lack of power makes other contributions still available.


Appendix: an exception?
Palma's article says that historians of economics cannot eschew formal methods if they want the respect of mainstream economists. It seems to me that my (1) to (3) argument reconstruction above, along with the assumptions specified, is a model. Is it worth formalizing (or formalizing further)? I don't think the mainstream economists I am acquainted with will care if this one is formalized or not.


References
Clarke, C.C. 1863. Shakespeare-Characters; Chiefly Those Subordinate.  London: Smith, Elder, and Company.
Haakonssen, K. (ed.) 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, D. 1977. Review of Understanding Rawls: A Reconstruction and Critique of a Theory of Justice by Robert Paul Wolff. Political Theory 5 (4): 541-544.
Palma, N. 2007. History of Economics, or a Selected History of Economics? Journal of the History of Economic Thought 30 (1): 93-104.
Rosenberg, N. 1965. Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two Views or One? Economica 32 (126): 127-139.
Strathern, M. (with comments from others) 1987. Out of Context: The Persuasive Fictions of Anthropology. Current Anthropology 28 (3): 251-281.
West, E.G. 1983 (originally 1964). Adam Smith's Two Views on the Division of Labour. In J.C. Wood (ed.), Adam Smith: Critical Assessments Volume III. London and Canberra: Croom Helm.
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Chapter one's dreams: the paradox of the specialist on specialization


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward        Draft version: Version 1 (26th October 2022)
Abstract. This brief paper presents a problem: the specialist on specialization must seek to know the value of specialization across different fields, but that would seem to make them non-specialized. I also propose solutions.


"Each night I process chapter one
And wonder when I shall be done"


In the opening chapter of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, he recommends specialization. You specialize in one task and I specialize in another and that way our ends are better achieved. So, presuming he followed his recommendation, he was a specialist on specialization. But how can there be a specialist on specialization? Because:
1. To be a specialist on specialization, a person must assess the claim that specialization is of value across fields.
2. To assess this claim they must know the value of specialization in very different fields, such as making a pin and philosophy.
3. But to know this, they must be a non-specialist.
It seems then that there cannot be a specialist on specialization.
I presume the most promising place to challenge this conclusion is commitment (3). One challenge to it is "We can develop a general model in favour of specialization that applies across fields, without knowing much about most fields and so remaining specialized." Another challenge is "It is not that they must be a non-specialist, rather they must be a specialist in many fields, or at least on many fields. They must do pin-making and philosophy and other things, or at least study all these." But regarding this other challenge, it seems to go against Smith's vision of each adult having a single narrow specialism.


Reference
Smith, A. 1904 (originally 1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: Methuen.
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A puzzle from the preface to Montesquieu's Persian Letters 


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I identify a puzzle from Montesquieu's preface, because he seems to praise a work while denying that he is doing so.
Draft version: Version 1 (22nd December 2022).


In the preface to Persian Letters, Montesquieu presents himself as a translator. The final paragraph of this preface preoccupies me. It says:
Use and wont permits every translator, and even the most illiterate commentator, to adorn the beginning of his version, or of his parody, with a panegyric on the original, and to extol its usefulness, its merit, and its excellence. It should not be very difficult to divine why I have not done so. One very excellent reason may be given: it would simply be adding tediousness to what is in itself necessarily tedious, namely, a preface.
In the last sentence, I take Montesquieu to be saying that he would be stating the obvious if he said that the work translated was useful, of merit, and excellent. I wish to identify a puzzle this leaves me with:
1. The convention at the time was for a translator to praise the work translated as useful, of merit, and excellent.
2. Montesquieu says that he will not do this.
3. The reason he gives is that it will add to the tediousness of the necessarily tedious, the preface, by stating the obvious.
But by asserting (c), does he not count as praising the work, for this proposition implies that the work is useful, of merit, and excellent?
        Perhaps we will be told that (a) does not quite capture the convention Montesquieu has in mind. It involves a specific style of praise, which is not achieved by the bare assertion of (c). That is the obvious way of trying to solve the puzzle, I suppose.


Reference
Montesquieu (translated by J. Davidson). 1891 (originally 1721). Persian Letters. Available at:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Persian_Letters/Introduction
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What is so special about Kant's moral philosophy? (And why should we tell you?)


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. The title question arises because the philosophy seems the same as asking, "What if everyone did that?" In this paper, I give a partial response to the question. In an appendix, I consider the question "Why should we tell you the answer?"


It seems we are in FAQ level, or at least I am: where you have to address all the questions that "everyone" has. Of course, part of the problem is working out what questions they have. I picked up this question from a website: what is so special about Kant, or what is so special about Kant's moral philosophy?
Kant addresses the issue of whether there is a fundamental principle from which all moral requirements can be derived and, if so, what it is. The person who posed the specialness question thinks of Kant as saying roughly the following: "Yes, there is a fundamental principle from which the whole of morality can be derived. Take something that someone does or is planning to do, e.g. break a promise because it is to their advantage. Ask whether everyone could do the same thing or if that would lead to social breakdown. If everyone could do the same thing, then the action is morally permissible. If not, then the action is morally impermissible."
I am going to suppose that this is the correct way of understanding Kant. I am also going to suppose that the practice of asking, "What if everyone did that?" was widespread before Kant gave his answer. And I am going to suppose that there is a large resemblance between the practice and what Kant recommends. (Let us go "all the way" and suppose that Kant did not make any other contributions to philosophy.)
So given what we are supposing, there is a puzzle about why anyone would be impressed by Kant's philosophy. But a Kant admirer might say the following: "Imagine asking as many people as possible whether there is a fundamental principle from which the whole of morality can be derived and if so, what it is. I suspect that a lot of people would not give or even conceive of Kant's answer unless they have already been taught Kant, despite engaging in the practice. It is one thing to sometimes engage in the practice of encouraging people to be moral by asking 'What if everyone did that?' It is another thing to realize that one can take this practice and turn it into a response to the question of whether there is a fundamental moral principle. Since I do not think many people would do that and since I think the response is worth considering, I am impressed by Kant."
I think the person who wondered what is so special about Kant is making an assumption, one which seems very plausible to begin with: if the answer someone gives to a question closely resembles something that many other people say, then that answer is not impressive. An exception to this assumption is if those other people would not connect what they say back to the question, when doing so provides an answer worth considering.


A different question. I think lots of people would independently realize the answer I have given to the Kant specialness question (which may not be the very best answer). Someone might wonder then, "Why is it so hard to get an answer to the question? Why is it not in any introduction to Kant?" But that leads on to another question, which I suspect is frequently asked, albeit by other people. Let us imagine a person who is interested in philosophy. They have some way of rating philosophers which is not at all strange. For example, they value system-builders over paradox-makers, paradox-makers over philosophers who just contribute to the field by making objections (which are not paradoxes), and objection-makers over mere interpreters. They have passed their examinations, have not cheated anyone, and are now even in a position where they can hire and fire philosophers – or contributors to the field of philosophy, if "philosopher" is too grand a word. They are puzzled by the value attached to Kant's moral philosophy and they cannot seem to work out any answer by themselves as to why it is valued. From their perspective, the philosophy is merely "What if everyone did that?" You might think not addressing their puzzle is a kind of injustice – they have come quite far and no one is telling them the answer. However, they attach very little value to a person who contributes to philosophy largely by addressing this puzzle and other puzzles they have about the field. Despite the effort they have put into getting somewhere in the field, is it an injustice to never answer their question, neither publicly nor in more enclosed settings, unless they revise their approach to rating contributors to philosophy? It is not clearly an injustice, because of the low value they attach to the task. Furthermore, here is a worry: "The kind of power you are after requires being able to work out answers to those questions." But it may be that the field of philosophy cannot realize its potential without publicly answering those questions.


Reference
Author unknown. 2011. What's so special about philosophers like Kant, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche? Quora. Available at:
https://www.quora.com/Whats-so-special-about-philosophers-like-Kant-Wittgenstein-and-Nietzsche#
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Outline of a social constructivist approach to Locke on the purpose of language


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper presents in outline a social constructivist challenge to the Lockean thesis that the purpose of language is to accurately represent thoughts.
Draft version: version 1 (9th April 2024)


        A social constructivist approach to a philosopher, or one prominent kind of social constructivist approach, challenges a portrait of the philosopher as grasping universal truths by means of their individual genius. Rather the philosopher's thoughts are a product of the time in which they lived. Usually the social constructivist not only wants to connect the philosophy to the time but also to do so in a way that casts doubt on the philosopher's claim to have grasped universal truths. In this paper, I want to outline how a social constructivist approach might be applied to John Locke on language. In the next part, I present the textbook account of Locke on the purpose of language. In the final part, I present a social constructivist response.


        The textbook account. Locke is a textbook reference point for a certain conception of the purpose of language. He is quoted as saying:
Man, though he have great variety of thoughts, and such, from which others, as well as himself, might receive profit and delight; yet they are all within his own breast, invisible, and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to appear. The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without the communication of thoughts, it was necessary, that man should find out some external signs, whereby those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. For this purpose, nothing was so fit, either for plenty or for quickness, as those articulate sounds, which with so much ease and variety he found himself able to make.Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be made use of by men, as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion, that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea. The use then of words, is to be sensible marks of ideas; and the ideas they stand for, are their proper and immediate signification. (Locke quoted in Morris 2007: 6)
The textbook from which I have taken this quotation does not present Locke as the originator of this conception of thought and language. He merely gives a succinct formulation of a conception which is mostly in Hobbes (Morris 2007: 6). But this is quite different from the social constructivist challenge to Locke's individual philosophical genius that I shall present, which applies to earlier philosophers too. Before presenting it, here are some theses which the textbook extracts from the quotation.
(1) The nature of language is defined by its function.
(2) The function of language is to communicate.
(3) What language is meant to communicate is thought.


        A social constructivist response. In her novella Cousin Phillis, Elizabeth Gaskell has a character say:
I was on the verge of displeasing him once or twice, I fear, with random assertions and exaggerated expressions, such as one always uses with other people, and thinks nothing of; but I tried to check myself when I saw how it shocked the good man; and really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.
Does one always use exaggerated expressions with other people? One hypothesis here is that Gaskell lived in a time when this was normal. And so the Lockean thesis that the function of language is to accurately represent thoughts would have seemed questionable to her. If accurately representing thoughts really is the purpose of language, then one would expect language to most commonly be used for that purpose and for there to be far less exaggeration (Edward 2024).
        According to the social constructivist challenge, the best explanation for why Locke says that the purpose of language is to accurately represent thoughts is not that he has grasped its purpose with his individual genius, rather it is because he moved in social circles in which people did try to do this with language and in which exaggeration was not normal. If he had lived in a different society, such as the one Gaskell inhabited, he would have found the thesis questionable. But this is the mere outline of a social constructivist challenge, because it requires empirical evidence of these different norms of speech.        


References
Edward, T.R. 2024. John Locke, Elizabeth Gaskell and the purpose of language. Available at academia.edu 
Gaskell, E. 1863-4. Cousin Phillis. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4268/4268-h/4268-h.htm
Morris, M. 2007. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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How do you read Mary Barton? An economics preface puzzle and a solution


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. In the preface to her novel Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell claims to know nothing of theories of trade, yet she displays some knowledge. I propose a solution to this puzzle based on the simplifying nature of economics models. 
Draft version: Version 1 (31st December 2022).


        In the preface to her novel Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell writes:
I know nothing of Political Economy, or the theories of trade. I have tried to write truthfully; and if my accounts agree or clash with any system, the agreement or disagreement is unintentional.
But living in a time of strained relations between the classes, she also writes:
The more I reflected on this unhappy state of things between those so bound to each other by common interests, as the employers and the employed must ever be, the more anxious I became to give some utterance to the agony which, from time to time, convulses this dumb people…
The puzzle then is this:
1. Gaskell claims to know nothing of theories of trade.
2. She knows something about common interests between employer and employee and their effects.
3. This is to know some theory of trade.
But what is the solution?
        I can present a solution that occurred to me as a dialogue.
ME: I would like to ask why you have said that you know nothing of theories of trade when you know about common interests between employer and employee and their effects.
MRS. GASKELL: Well, the economist uses simplified models, doesn't he?
ME: Yes.
MRS. GASKELL: So he might have a simplified model of a situation in which there are two kinds of people facing the situation: people who know theories of trade and people who don't. And the former react in one way and the latter in another.
ME: Yes.
MRS. GASKELL: So I know a little, but when you try to predict what will happen to me using this model, you just count me as a person who knows nothing. So my preface is addressed to economists and I talk their language, saying, "I know nothing of your theories."  
ME: You do sound familiar when talking to me as well.


Reference
Gaskell, E. 1848. Mary Barton. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2153/pg2153-images.html#cp
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Victorian social science and Elizabeth Gaskell's literary strategy, versus the Brontë sisters


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Abstract. This paper speculatively proposes that Elizabeth Gaskell used the social science of her time to gain an advantage over the Brontë sisters. Victorian evolutionist anthropology said that societies go through stages of development, though some societies are at an earlier stage still. Sequences of stages were specified, such as primitive promiscuity, matriarchy, and then patriarchy. My proposal is that Elizabeth Gaskell's advisers, if not she herself, would have predicted industrial revolutions in other countries: making her fiction on the industrial revolution highly relevant there.
Draft version: version 2 (16th October 2025)


This is no dream
A dialogue such as this must have been


There must have been some competition between Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontë sisters, even though Elizabeth Gaskell wrote the first biography of Charlotte Brontë. I speculate that Gaskell has used the social science of her day to gain an advantage. Here is a fictional dialogue.


GASKELL: What am I going to do about the Brontë sisters? The reading public is forever expanding and uncultivated readers are sure to prefer the flashy works of the sisters. Also the family have only been in literature since the father published some poems. New readers will relate to them and embrace them as their own.
EAGLEFOX: Don't worry, Elizabeth. Write about industrialization in Manchester. I have got a plan.
GASKELL: What is your plan?
EAGLEFOX: There is a theory in the new field of anthropology according to which there is a sequence of stages which a society goes through before it reaches our own stage, but some societies are in the earliest stages still. And some are in earlier stages to ours.
GASKELL: So?
EAGLEFOX: The academics use this theory to explain why one society and another share a ritual, for example. They are in the same stage and that ritual is part of that stage.
GASKELL: Like, for example, like, burning widows as the Hindus do. Don't tell me that there are other peoples who do that? O recall those lines from the ill-fated Hudibras: Like Indian widows gone to bed / Flaming curtains, to the dead. 
EAGLEGOX: What we predict is that some time in the late twenty-first century countries such as India and China will experience industrialization. And your works will be in vogue there.
GASKELL: Amongst such large populations? But will they not have their own authors on industrialization?
EAGLEFOX: The scholars there will surely pore over your texts and be keen that their authors not repeat your own efforts.


References
Butler, S. 1663. Hudibras. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4937/pg4937.txt
Gaskell, E. 1857. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Volume 1. Smith, Elder, and Co. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1827/1827-h/1827-h.htm
________________


Dorothea versus John Locke's philosophy


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I interpret George Eliot as objecting to John Locke in Middlemarch – more specifically, his theory of ideas – by means of her account of Dorothea's experiences of Edward Casaubon at dinner.
Draft version: Version 1 (September 30th 2022).


It's dinner time and the clock goes tick tock
As the key to all mythologies meets a dream of John Locke


        In chapter two of the esteemed Victorian novel Middlemarch, there is a reference to the foundational English philosopher John Locke. Some characters are having dinner. Young Dorothea desires to marry the ageing scholar Edward Casaubon. She fears the conversation is too shallow for him:
She wondered how a man like Mr Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, she thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type represented by Sir James Chettam. (1871-2: chapter 2)
A reference to Locke, but is there any philosophical significance in these sentences?
        This may be reading too much into her words, but perhaps what Eliot is trying to say is this: "Locke held the theory that concepts are images. If we take a sentence, it is composed of words and those words usually refer but how do they refer? For example, how does the word 'triangle' in the sentence 'Every triangle has three sides' refer to triangles? Locke's answer is that when a speaker utters this sentence, an image of a triangle is in the speaker's mind and that image resembles triangles more than it does other stuff and because of that resemblance, the word 'triangle' refers to triangles. That image is the speaker's concept of a triangle. When they have a thought such as 'Every triangle has three sides' that thought is composed of concepts and concepts are images. Words enable them to communicate the thought to others. But when Dorothea thinks, 'I wish to marry Edward Casaubon,' the image that occurs in her mind is actually an image of John Locke. Nevertheless, her sentence which expresses that thought surely refers to Edward Casaubon. So there must be a problem with Locke's theory of how words refer."


Reference
Eliot, G. 1871-72. Middlemarch. Accessed on 4th February 2020 from:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm
________________
Dorothea's Lockean impressions through the lens of Joseph Raz


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. The natural interpretation is that Dorothea's early impressions of Edward Casaubon, in terms of John Locke, are illusory. But I draw attention to Joseph Raz's suggestion that it is the status of Locke which is mistaken, though I favour the natural interpretation.
Draft version: Version 1 (October 25th 2022).


From house to house I would knock
For the best undergraduate essay on Locke


        Chapter 2 of Middlemarch: an as yet unmarried Dorothea is dining with some others, including Edward Casaubon. Poets at a previous dinner are being rated. Who was number one and who number two? Dorothea does not feel at ease: 
She wondered how a man like Mr Casaubon would support such triviality. (1871-2: chapter 2)
But what sort of man is he? We are informed of more of the contents of her mind:
His manners, she thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type represented by Sir James Chettam. (1871-2: chapter 2)
I presume a "natural" reaction to this material, at least after reading more of the book, if not at this very point, is: she is overrating Casaubon. He is no Locke! (Possibly the man with the poet ratings would be better at this.)
        But Joseph Raz, in his obituary for the legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart, suggests a different perspective. He tries to place Hart in relation to some great names, telling us of: 
…the need to struggle with the richer and subtler works of Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Kant or Hegel. But jurisprudence languishes when it is studied independently of general philosophy. Hart rescued jurisprudence in English by re-establishing its lifeline to general philosophy. Arguably apart from his work (together with Honoré) on causation he has not contributed greatly to general philosophy. But his writings in philosophy of law join those of Hobbes and Bentham as the major contributions in English to that subject. (1993: 156)
What about Locke? Raz's omission suggests a very different assessment, which is "Dorothea is right to regard Edward Casaubon as on the same level as Locke. Locke's level is not that high." But I find the assessment strange. It is worth registering as a very different perspective to the one I regard as natural, suggested by someone whose opinion is highly relevant, but at present I personally am not convinced by Dorothea's understanding of Casaubon or Locke or relations between the two.
        It is also worth noting that the Razian assessment does not regard Dorothea as mistake-free. Even if she is right to regard the two as on the same level, she does not realize what level it is. There is an argument of interest to do with this matter.
1. Locke's level is ten out of ten.
2. Edward Casaubon's level is ten out of ten.
Therefore:
3. Their levels are the same.
The conclusion is correct from this Razian perspective – their levels are the same – but both premises involved are false. But Dorothea was justified by testimony for the Locke rating premise and perhaps there was some nineteenth century appearance-character assessment system which supported the Casaubon rating premise.[11] At that time, the premises were justified. And the inference is valid, assuming a rating system that applies across fields, so the conclusion was justified. It is also true from the Razian perspective but nevertheless probably not knowledge from this perspective, when arrived at this way, owing to erroneous premises in the pathway. Elaborating the perspective somewhat, we find that it rejects not just the traditional status accorded to Locke but also the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief (see also Turri on Gettier cases, 2014: 74).


References
Eliot, G. 1871-72. Middlemarch. Accessed on 4th February 2020 from:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm
Raz, J. 1993. H.L.A. Hart (1907-1992). Utilitas 5 (2): 145-156.
Turri, J. 2014. Epistemology: A Guide. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
________________
The varieties of cleverness again: Rosamond and rational actorn economics


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper tries to distinguish Middlemarch's Rosamond from a rational actor economist.
Draft version: Version 3 (25th September 2024 - trying, dear Reader, to salvage this paper)


        Who is Rosamond? Well, there are various Rosamonds. I am referring to Rosamond from George Eliot's long, esteemed, rewarding novel Middlemarch, though not quite top tier in some people's eyes (see Aldington 1914: 17). She appears to be counted amongst the clever people in the novel. I wish to look into that impression.
She marries Lydgate, thought of as one of the clever, and who can marry the clever but the clever?! Here is a character warning her against doing so:
Mr. Lydgate is very intellectual and clever; I know there is an attraction in that. I like talking to such men myself; and your uncle finds him very useful. But the profession is a poor one here. To be sure, this life is not everything; but it is seldom a medical man has true religious views – there is too much pride of intellect. And you are not fit to marry a poor man. (1871-2: Chapter 31)
Anyway, even if the clever can marry outside that group, Rosamond seems to be credited with cleverness herself by the novel's narrator:
What she liked to do was to her the right thing, and all her cleverness was directed to getting the means of doing it. (1871-2: chapter 58)
Why she is like a character from rational actor economics!
But there is at least one difference between Rosamond and rational actor economics, which I shall try to specify
(Rational actor economics) i. It does not assess the value of ends. ii. It assesses the means taken towards ends. Which means are the most rational given those ends?
(Rosamond)  i. She does assess the value of ends – if she feels like pursuing a given end, then it is right. ii. All her cleverness is directed towards getting the means of pursuing her ends.
I am going to assume there is no difference between the second component in both. What about the first? Rational actor economics, as usually understood, is available to someone who thinks, "These are my ends, but I regard them as morally wrong." It does not get involved in judgment of ends. But Rosamond does. Regarding the first component of Rosamond's outlook, I presume "right" refers to the morally right. She holds that all the ends she feels like pursuing are morally right!
        There is also a delightful implication by the narrator, when it is said that all her cleverness is directed towards the means. Her method of moral assessing ends is not clever, stupid even: "If I, Rosamond, feel like doing it, then it is right." 


References
Aldington, R. 1914. Violet Hunt. The Egoist 1 (1): 17-18.  
Eliot, G. 1871-72. Middlemarch. Accessed on 4th February 2020 from:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm


________________


Christina Rossetti's "Pros and Cons" versus Middlemarch: rhythm and anti-racism


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. Christina Rossetti's short fiction has been long-neglected, we are told. In this paper, I respond to her fiction "Pros and Cons," which perhaps provides a clue regarding why there has been neglect: it leaves the impression of being an imitation of George Eliot, a mocking imitation even. I identify two differences between Rossetti and Eliot.
Draft version: Version 1 (19th August 2022).


"Who knows, who knows
Who will remember my prose?
I once wrote of a rose on a window sill
Who will remember that?
Possibly no one will."


        Christina Rossetti is known today for her poetry, but she published a book of short fiction in 1870 entitled Commonplace. Within the book is a brief fiction entitled "Pros and Cons." Here is the opening:
'But, my dear Doctor,' cried Mrs Plume, 'you can never seriously mean it.'
The scene was the Rectory drawing room – teatime; some dozen parishioners drinking tea with their Rector and his wife. Mrs Goodman looked down; her husband, the Rector, looked up. (2005 [1870]: 81)
The fiction contains a debate over helping the poor. It reads like a faux chapter imitating George Eliot's Middlemarch, but was actually published before the monumental novel, which appeared from 1871 to 1872. Thus I find this is somewhat troubling territory to enter into. Did Eliot imitate Rossetti or is there material like this in Eliot from earlier? Eliot's sources have been thoroughly researched; and at present I find it difficult not to believe that Rossetti is engaged in imitation, with a touch of mockery as well.
My copy of the book Commonplace, published in 2005, contains a foreword by Andrew Motion which interestingly does not enter into this issue – surely someone has; the helpful information is not conveyed –  but does describe one of the fictions contained, itself entitled "Commonplace," as following in the footsteps of another famous Victorian novelist. The book cover tells me that Rossetti's short fiction has long been neglected. I wish to draw attention to two differences between Rossetti and Eliot.
(a) There are anti-racist sentiments in Rossetti's fiction, which figure in a way that allows for a sharp contrast with Eliot. Here is another quotation from "Pros and Cons":
'Sir,' interposed Mr Blackman, 'we are all equals, whatever may be our colour or our country. But whilst the Zenana counts its victims by thousands, whilst the Japanese make boast of their happy despatch, whilst the Bushman, dwindling before our face, lives and dies as the beasts that perish, shall we divert our attention from such matters of life and death to fix it on a petty question of appearance? Pardon me if tears from our benighted brethren blind us to such matters as this.' (2005 [1870]: 81)
Criticism today would be made of the description of the Bushman as living and dying as the beasts that perish. Anyway, looking into English literature, the anti-racist discourse of 1870 is interesting.
        Compare that anti-racism with George Eliot's characters and descriptions. This is the rector's wife in Middlemarch:
"Enough! I understand,"—said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You shall be innocent. I am such a blackamoor that I cannot smirch myself." (1871-2: chapter 62)
I suppose Eliot's view is that a realistic portrait of various parishioners does not leave them looking so anti-racist. I find it difficult to believe that the contrast we are left with is accidental.
        (b) Rossetti's parishioners speak with more rhythm and richer imagery than Eliot's often do – the quotation above is something of an exception. One might propose that this is because Rossetti is a poet. But as a poet she is known for what I am tempted to call a "transparent gown technique." A critic takes out the rhymes to see what difference it would make, finding their impact faint (Dobrée 1934: 68-69). Perhaps it is the case that she is strangely more typically poetic in her prose, and more prosaic in her poetry – what sort of system is this? – but I believe she is of the opinion that this is how parishioners debating actually speak. Here is a further quotation from Rossetti, following right on from the previous quotation:
'Our benighted brethren,' said the Rector, gravely, 'have my pity, have my prayers, have my money in some measure. Of your larger gifts in these several kinds I will not ask you to divert one throb, or one word, or one penny in favour of our poor fellow-parishioners. No, dear friend, help us by your good example to enlarge our field of charitable labour; to stress full-handed towards remote spots; but not meanwhile to fail in breaking up our fallow ground at home.  We all know that if at this moment either our foreign or native ragged brother were to present himself in church, however open our hearts may be to him, our pew-doors would infallibly be shut against him…' (2005 [1870]: 81-82)
The conversation that occurs is something like a sermon competition, and probably the material is designed to give that impression.
Eliot is known as someone who struggled in the medium of poetry. There is a question of whether that weakness followed her into the realistic novel, where she could not capture some relevant manners of speech. But Eliot writes of "Mr. Trumbull having all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the predominant races of the north" (1871-2: chapter 32) presumably suggesting that Rossetti has made the English more dramatic than they are.  


References
Dobrée, B. 1934. An Experiment with Rhyme. Life and Letters 10 (52): 66-72.
Eliot, G. 1871-72. Middlemarch. Accessed on 4th February 2020 from:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm
Rossetti, C. 2005 (originally 1870). Pros and Cons. From Commonplace. London: Hesperus Press.
________________
Self-interest and Henry Heine on the lack of English minor masters


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I argue that Henry Heine's assessment of the English – that they are either rare universal geniuses or self-interested mediocrities – is prone to an objection which draws upon his own characterization. I tried to write this in an Edwardian style, but the result is a mishmash!
Draft version: version 1 (March 2022)


        A quotation. When the traveller Henry Heine came to England, his impressions of the people were not entirely favourable, as George Eliot has drawn to our attention:
 It is certainly a frightful injustice to pronounce sentence of condemnation on an entire people.  But with regard to the English, momentary disgust might betray me into this injustice; and on looking at the mass I easily forget the many brave and noble men who distinguished themselves by intellect and love of freedom.  But these, especially the British poets, were always all the more glaringly in contrast with the rest of the nation; they were isolated martyrs to their national relations; and, besides, great geniuses do not belong to the particular land of their birth: they scarcely belong to this earth, the Golgotha of their sufferings.  The mass—the English blockheads, God forgive me!—are hateful to me in my inmost soul; and I often regard them not at all as my fellow-men, but as miserable automata—machines, whose motive power is egoism.  (Heine, quoted in Eliot 1883)
As Heine depicts matters, the Englishman is either a rare universal genius or a mediocre self-interested blockhead, with nothing in-between, a people devoid of minor masters.
        A tension! That is just the nature of our English race, Heine seems to be saying, but he also characterises the mass as egoistic, which is a difficult combination to maintain:
1. The English are a few universal geniuses and a mass of mediocre individuals. The race does not produce people capable of being minor masters.
2. The mediocre individuals are each self-interested.
Given (B), perhaps there are quite a few who could be minor masters, but it is unprofitable for them to try, for they cannot compete with the universal geniuses and little is needed to compete with nearby others. Consequently, they confine themselves to mediocrity.
An example. Let us imagine that a university administrator in Manchester has written a book of stories which are meant to be in the tradition of Tchekhoff. But there is an inevitable criticism: that she captures very little of the empire here. So a rival buys from the South Asian markets, attends a Caribbean literature reading group, proofreads for Chinese overseas students, and then proceeds to write. He does no more than what is required to score above her book; he merely writes multicultural stories at this sub-Tchekhoffian level. Indeed, why trouble oneself with making a thoroughly Russian seed flower abroad?
        A concluding analogy. Literature in England, for various contributors, is like a tennis match in which one has discovered that the opponent does not deal well with lobs. You aim for that side's clouds. They wait for the ball to bounce, it bounces high, and then they struggle to hit it back. Then you lob the ball in the air again. "Come back to me once you have solved that problem and I might play less repetitive and more watchable tennis" is the sportsman's message.


Reference
Eliot, G. 1883. German Wit: Henry Heine. In N. Sheppard (ed.), The Essays of "George Eliot".  New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
________________
"La proximité de cet homme": a case of Victorian deconstruction?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. I observe that the aim and method of a Victorian text within Shakespeare criticism overlaps significantly with deconstruction.
Draft version: Version 2 (June 10th 2022, final paragraph, references added).


        In one of his letters on the English nation, Voltaire describes the poetical genius of the English so far:
Hitherto the poetical genius of the English resembles a tufted tree planted by the hand of Nature, that throws out a thousand branches at random, and spreads unequally, but with great vigour. It dies if you attempt to force its nature, and to lop and dress it in the same manner as the trees of the Garden of Marli. (1733: letter XVIII)
In this letter, he also translates from Shakespeare and it is presumably Shakespeare especially that he has in mind. The natural fecundity of Shakespeare versus the orderliness of classical authors!
        This is some background information. Let us move forward to Victorian times. Early on in a course of lectures, published in 1863, we are provided with a justification for focusing on minor characters within the works of the English playwright:
When I first proposed to myself the undertaking of a Course of Lectures upon the Genius of Shakespeare, my first feeling was, that I could scarcely hope to originate any new theory upon the principal characters in his dramas; for they have been subjected to and have passed the ordeal of the most acute critical intellects of the most civilised nations of the world during more than a century past; and therefore for a while I suspended my intention. But then it occurred to me that the secondary movements, the "subordinate characters" in his plots, have, to a considerable extent, been neglected,—the satellites of the several systems have been merged in the rays of their presiding and controlling suns. Of these "subordinate characters" it became my "hint to speak," according to my homely wit; and I hoped to show passages of beauty that have been either too superficially, even thoughtlessly read, mayhap altogether overlooked, and some delicate points of character that have been undeservedly neglected. (Clarke 1863: 3)
Prior to his lectures I imagine someone asking this Shakespeare critic, named Charles Cowden Clarke, "What are you talking about minor characters for? Aren't these two the main characters of that play?" for example Anthony and Cleopatra. At this point perhaps the critic is unsure what to say. He is interested in this material, but has no answer to this forceful question. Then he decides to open his lectures with the following explanation: there is some overlooked beauty elsewhere in the play. His argument, which we can call "the neglected beauty argument," is this:
1. If much has been said about the main characters and there is some overlooked beauty involving only minor ones, then we are justified in attending to that instead of the main characters.
2. Much has been said about the main characters and there is some overlooked beauty involving only minor ones.
Therefore:
3.  We are justified in attending to that instead of the main characters.
The conclusion follows from the premises and I shall suppose the premises are not objectionable.
But the critic goes on to say something which reveals a much grander ambition:
I did not, therefore, take up this subject because the principal points in the plays have been treated to repletion, but to make manifest that the secondary ones are rich in nature and dramatic effect; and, in consequence, upon addressing myself to my task, I was constantly impressed with one feature in Shakespeare's intellectual organisation, and that is the pervading harmony of his inferior characters with the great and single end he had in view towards the developing and maturing of his plan. (1863: 3-4)
This suggests a quite different argument for focusing beyond the main characters, which we can call "the structural argument." The argument is as follows.
1. If understanding the structures is of value but to achieve it one must carefully attend to material involving only minor characters, then it is of value to carefully attend to this material.
2. Understanding the structures is of value but to achieve it one must carefully attend to material involving only minor characters.
Therefore:
3. It is of value to carefully attend to material involving only minor characters.
Beyond this structural argument, the passage also suggests the aim of overturning the contrast between the orderly classical genius and the disorderly English genius, by developing a more exact understanding of the structures of English plays, by means of attending to these neglected passages. That is why I say that a much grander ambition is revealed. An exact understanding will apparently demonstrate that the contrast is misleading. For this critic, there is some difference, but it is a difference within the well-structured, rather than between the well-structured and the disorderly.
There is a close resemblance here to the deconstructive literary-philosophical criticism which became more and more dominant in the 1970s. In terms of method, there is an emphasis on attending to textual evidence that others overlook. And the pervading spirit is one of science in general, rather than one which depends on an opposition between the study of natural scientific objects and the study of the arts. One can imagine the same points being made in a language like "Is there a rigorous and scientific concept of…." (Derrida 1977) In terms of the result, or aimed for result, it is supposed to be a justified rejection of a dualistic representation. But there are differences as well. When the deconstructivist claims to be deconstructing a dualism, it is usually something (seemingly) less local than the classical genius versus the English genius, such as the literal and the metaphorical, or philosophy versus rhetoric (see Morris 2000). Also our Victorian critic is trying to reveal a coherent structure, whereas deconstructivists regard impressions of coherence with suspicion at best (Battalgia 1990: 4). Nevertheless, I wonder whether there is enough in common for us to say that we are dealing with deconstruction avant la lettre. But to accept this would not fit well with the textbook portrait of literary criticism based on civilized intuition replaced by more scientific theories in the 1960s (Eagleton 2008: xii); and even richer histories of an earlier age leave only a faint sense of how to incorporate such a claim (Blamires 1991). In an earlier paper, the first quotation above led me to wonder whether there are cases of Victorian deconstruction; but actually one does not have to look far for a plausible candidate – it is merely a matter of reading on. 


References
Battaglia, D. 1990. On the Bones of a Serpent: Person, Memory, and Mortality in Sabarl Island Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Blamires, H. 1991. A History of Literary Criticism. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Clarke, C.C. 1863. Shakespeare-Characters; Chiefly Those Subordinate.  London: Smith, Elder, and Company.
Derrida, J.1977. (originally 1972). Signature Event Context. Glyph 1: 172-197.
Eagleton, T. 2008 (third edition). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. 
Edward, T.R. 2022. Almost Forgotten Deconstruction. Available at: https://philpapers.org/rec/EDWAFD
Morris, M. 2000. Metaphor and Philosophy: An Encounter with Derrida. Philosophy 75 (292): 225-244.
Voltaire, F. 1733. Letters Concerning The English Nation. London: C. Davies and A. Lyon.
________________
Why did Frazer not do fieldwork?


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward        Draft version: Version 1 (5th December 2022)
Abstract. Probably the most famous story about the armchair anthropologist Sir James Frazer is about how, when asked by William James about doing fieldwork, he said, "But Heavens forbid!" I propose that it was rational for Frazer to avoid fieldwork given his theory of what is rational for so-called savages: to kill returning tribesmen and visitors, to protect against disease.


Whoever may be this drifting stranger
I hope it's not the park ranger


The abstract basically covers the thinking of this paper and it is just a matter of filling in some details. Here is a quotation from I.C. Jarvie about the armchair anthropologist:
William James tells us that when he asked Sir James Frazer about natives he had known, Frazer exclaimed, "But Heaven forbid!" (1967: 2)
Now in Frazer's anthropology he tries to rationalize native practices reported by travellers. I don't think he is often successful in revealing their rationality, assuming they are rational, but here is a possible exception:  
The natives of Savage Island (South Pacific) invariably killed, not only all strangers in distress who were drifted to their shores, but also any of their own people who had gone away in a ship and returned home. This was done out of dread of disease. (1894: 158)
What Frazer generally tries to convince us of is that the behaviour of the so-called savage is rational given their overall situation and you would probably do that too, "in their shoes." But given this approach to anthropology, Frazer has a good reason not to do fieldwork. If he were a tribe member, he would think that the best thing to do is kill the anthropologist.


Reference
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan.
________________
The Golden Bough as an argument against diffusionism


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper interprets Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough as presenting an objection to diffusionism: the diffusionist theory cannot account for the isolation of the rite Frazer focuses on, in the societies studied by classicists.
Draft version: Version 3 (October 16th 2022, Frazer volume number added).


By the sacred grove
A slave did rove,
Put his hands upon a tree
Like a pigeon free


        The debate between evolutionism and diffusionism dominated late nineteenth century British anthropology and the period before the fieldwork revolution. The question participants addressed was why one society and another both had some feature. Evolutionist explanations said that societies went through a sequence of evolutionary stages. Two societies at the same stage would have features defining that stage, even if there is no contact with each other and no intermediaries connecting them. The diffusionists posited centres of creativity from which innovations spread. In a certain period, a certain country or city might be a centre of creativity from which innovations spread: ideas, styles, technologies, and more.
        Now as we move further back in time, we find that texts are not always as explicit as they are today. They often don't say, "This is my position…And this is my opponent's position… And I don't agree with him because…" Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough strikes me as such a text. The aim of the book is to explain a horrifying rite of succession at Nemi. There was a priest of the goddess Diana. To become the next priest, one had to be a runaway slave. Then one had to enter a sacred grove and break off a branch from a tree in that grove. That entitled one to a fight to the death with the current priest. To kill him: that is what one needed to do in order to become the next priest.
        This is a quotation from Frazer's enchanting opening chapter, regarding the rule of succession:
This strange rule has no parallel in classical antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. To find an explanation we must go farther afield. No one will deny that such a custom savours of a barbarous age and, surviving into imperial times, stands out in isolation from the polished Italian society of the day, like a primeval rock rising from a smooth-shaven lawn. (1894: 2-3)
How do we explain the distribution of such a rite if diffusionism is true? Why are there not other instances in the regions studied by classicists? If it is replied that sometimes there are innovations beyond a centre of creativity but they are not valuable enough and so people import innovations instead, how can one explain the persistence of the rite? It persists, as if it were experienced as having value, yet is isolated in its region – there is no other rite like it.
        Frazer does not say that he is against diffusionism. But surely the diffusionist of the day who read his work would have felt a challenge and I presume that was the plan! To repeat, how can the diffusionist account for the following qualities?
1. The rite was isolated in its larger region – there was no rite like it there.
2. It persisted, indicating that it was perceived as valuable.
A solution for the diffusionist is to speculate that Nemi was a centre of creativity and that innovations were experienced as valuable by people in neighbouring areas, but regarding this particular rite everyone thought, "It's good, but we're not doing that in our village!" But the solution requires some elaboration of "Why not?" because it looks a cunning way of dealing with the problem of runaway slaves.


Reference
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The golden bough. A study in comparative religion. Volume 1. New York: Macmillan and Company.
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Frazer and the social function of gift exchange norms


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. Why is there a norm of reciprocity in certain societies – the recipient of a gift should give a gift in return? Or what is its function? Sir James Frazer provides an unobvious answer to the function of such a norm in one society: it serves to establish who is alive.
Draft version: Version 1 (14th September 2022).


"Frazer's volumes were paper boats
Sunken with their reference notes."


        Some societies have norms of reciprocity concerning gift exchange, that is to say, if you receive a gift you ought to give something in return. Perhaps there is no law which says you must, and in some societies nor will you be regarded as evil, but it is said that you ought to do this. Why? Well, let us leave aside the rationale society members would give and focus on the social function which such a norm plays. A seemingly obvious claim is that meeting the norm functions to maintain social ties between individuals and groups. In The Golden Bough, Frazer presents us with another function, in one society at least:
In the backwoods of Cambodia live two mysterious sovereigns known as the King of the Fire and the King of the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of the great Indo-Chinese peninsula; but only a faint echo of it has reached the West. No European, so far as is known, has ever seen them; and their very existence might have passed for a fable, were it not that till a few years ago communications were regularly maintained between them and the King of Cambodia, who year by year exchanged presents with them. The Cambodian gifts were passed from tribe to tribe till they reached their destination; for no Cambodian would essay the long and perilous journey. (1894: 54)
Frazer draws attention to how certain gift exchanges function to establish existence. "But could not someone just fake the gift?" I presume there has to be something in the character of the gift such that no one else could do that. But maybe the situation is: if you can produce a gift that convinces, then that makes you a Cambodian king too, with its gift exchange obligations!
 
Appendix
        With the functionalist revolution, which focused on the functions of rituals rather than origins and claimed that to understand the function one has to understand the social system a ritual is part of, Frazer was judged unreadable for professional anthropologists (Strathern 1987: 251). But there are parts of Frazer which can be reframed for functionalist interests, though perhaps only few (see citations in Strathern 1987: 262). Frazer was not explicitly concerned with the function of gift exchange when writing about Cambodian kings.


References
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan.
Strathern, M. (With comments, including by I.C. Jarvie) 1987. Out of Context: The Persuasive Fictions of Anthropology. Current Anthropology 28 (3): 251-281.
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Hillo! Frazer and a last resort attempt to catch something in one's net


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. J.G. Frazer tells us about a last resort technique which Cambodian hunters use when they have caught nothing in their nets. The "technique" is they act as if they themselves have got caught in the net. Frazer explains this as the consequence of magical thinking, but I propose a different explanation.
Draft version: Version 1 (16th October 2022).


"It's open day: look at all the fishes in my net
—I mean all the children and parents I've met!"


        Sir James Frazer, in his ever enchanting book The Golden Bough, presents a technique used by Cambodian hunters who have failed to catch anything:
When a Cambodian hunter has set his nets and taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off, then strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be caught in it and cries, "Hillo! What's this? I'm afraid I'm caught." After that the net is sure to catch game. (1894: 10)
Frazer takes these actions to be done on the basis of a highly general belief that causes resemble effects, a belief that Frazer regards as magical thinking and as false (1894: 11).
        But hunters who use this last resort technique to catch something need not have this general belief or any belief in magic. More precisely, it seems consistent for them to lack such beliefs. Have you ever noticed that if you go to a dinner party and perform a strange gesture, others do as well? Before investigating the matter carefully, there is a question of whether it works across species. Maybe animals – or non-human animals – will do what you do as well. Why not try and see if that works?
  

This line of thought, or one much like it but with something slightly different from a modern dinner party as the initial prompt, can give rise to the last resort technique described. "Let's see if we can catch things like this!" Even if one finds that it is often not successful, having tried normal hunting methods, one is still stuck without food, so it is not a bad idea to at least try this. (But Frazer describes the Cambodian hunters as believing that it is sure to work.)


Reference
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan.
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Hillo! Getting caught in your own net as a humiliation rite


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward        
Abstract. I present another explanation for why Cambodian hunters catch themselves in their own nets when they have caught nothing. It is a humiliation rite, based on the premise: if you have spent your whole day hunting and have not trapped anything with the net, then the net has trapped you. The explanation reveals one of the problems with trying to work out why other people do things by placing yourself in their position: contradictory explanations. 
Draft version: Version 2 (18th October 2022, "intended prey")


For all your rules and rights
A thousand bites


        What do you do when you are a Cambodian hunter and you have failed to catch anything in your net? Sir James Frazer tells us:
When a Cambodian hunter has set his nets and taken nothing, he strips himself naked, goes some way off, then strolls up to the net as if he did not see it, lets himself be caught in it and cries, "Hillo! What's this? I'm afraid I'm caught." After that the net is sure to catch game. (1894: 10)
Now Frazer was much criticized for trying to understand so-called primitive rites by putting himself in the place of the participants and figuring out why he would act as they did and then attributing the same motivations to them. What is wrong with that? A problem is that one can arrive at contradictory explanations by using this method. There may be a practical reason for the rite described, hoping the intended prey will imitate, but it might also be a purely "symbolic" activity.
        Amongst some skilled craftsmen in a field, if you make a mistake there may well be a rule that you have to do something humiliating. Imagine that someone sells dodgy nets. But an experienced hunter should be able to distinguish these unsuitable nets from suitable ones. If you don't and you purchase one and you go out hunting and consequently fail to catch anything, then the situation is described thus:
You have not trapped anything with your net
No! Your net has trapped you.
Now if you have a good net, but you still fail, you are regarded as not much better, let's imagine. So one day a Cambodian hunter introduces the rule: "Then you have got to strip naked and go in your net as a public expression of what a poor hunter you are." (Frazer depicts Cambodian hunters as believing that they are sure to catch prey, but that might just be something they say to outsiders. Would you tell the Colonialist Traveller, "This is what you have to do if you fail, as humiliation"?)
  





Appendix
        The criticism that this method of placing yourself in the position of the native can lead to contradictory explanations has not been properly made before, to my knowledge. But I have taken inspiration from A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. He wrote:
The acceptability of a historical explanation depends on the fullness and reliability of the historical record. In the primitive societies that are studied by social anthropology there are no historical records. We have no knowledge of the development of social institutions among the Australian aborigines for example. Anthropologists, thinking of their study as a kind of historical study, fall back on conjecture and imagination, and invent 'pseudo-historical' or 'pseudo-causal' explanations. We have had, for example, innumerable and sometimes conflicting pseudohistorical accounts of the origin and development of the totemic institutions of the Australian aborigines. (1952: 3)
The main criticism here and the one associated with Radcliffe-Brown (D'Andrade 1995: 4-5; Lavenda and Schultz 2018: 180), is that the explanations offered, as explanations of why a primitive rite originated, cannot be verified owing to lack of historical records. But there is also this reference to "conflicting," though without details provided of conflicts. That led me to conceive the contradiction criticism and leads me to envisage a dialogue.


Critic K: The credit should go to Radcliffe-Brown. And you should have included this criticism of Frazer in your earlier handout on Radcliffe-Brown's objections to Frazer.
Me: Well, Radcliffe-Brown has clearly realized the verifiability problem – "The acceptability depends…on… historical record", "We have no knowledge…" "Fall back on conjecture and imagination." But the statements we would expect of someone who has also clearly realized the contradictoriness problem are absent. He does not say, "The method is incoherent," "Applied thoroughly it leads to nonsense, such as the rite was introduced for success and for failure," "It has the status of a square circle," etc.
Critic K: He didn't use typical rhetoric, but still it's Radcliffe-Brown's point.
Me: But he does not present any contradiction, so that we can grasp his thinking more clearly. The word "conflict" by itself is a metaphor, which I am assuming should be interpreted in terms of contradiction.
Critic K: Anthropologists at the time would have easily been able to fill out the details. Don't you sometimes leave people to fill them out, trusting them to, in line with your intentions?
Me: Sometimes, probably I would in wartime. I am not convinced that is the best explanation here. By the way, there is another Radcliffe-Brown-inspired objection not on my handout – coming soon!


Perhaps you can anticipate the dialogue above by yourself, but what about this other dialogue?


Critic B: I can't understand the difference between the two criticisms.
Me: Um, er, um, er… Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that for some reason all academic anthropologists imagine the same origin for a certain so-called primitive rite. More strongly, strangely they cannot arrive at contradictory explanations of the origin when they apply the imagine-why-you-would-do-it method. Still Radcliffe-Brown would say that there needs to be an adequate historical record to verify their hypothesis about how the rite originated. At least that is what his words imply. In the situation we have supposed, only one of the two objections discussed applies. (By the way, probably somewhere there are attempts at a priori historical proofs, saying, "We lack historical data but there is no other option but this explanation.")
 
At this point, critic B either says, "I still don't understand," or looks irritable or yawns, or says, "Okay, thanks." (Perhaps an ambitious university plans to climb up the ranks by letting in all varieties of critic B, and no worse. A sensible plan, but I am not sure that that can work!)


References
D'Andrade, R. 1995. The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edward, T.R. 2022. Social anthropology summary: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown's objections to Sir James Frazer. Available at: https://philpapers.org/rec/EDWSAS-4
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan.
Lavenda, R.H. and Schultz, E.A. 2018 (fourth edition). Anthropology: what does it mean to be human? New York: Oxford University Press.
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press.
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Savage and civilized on controlling the weather, from The Golden Bough 


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough presents a puzzle regarding how primitive peoples believe they can control something which civilized people regard as beyond their control: the weather. I clarify the puzzle and consider Frazer's solution to it, as well as other solutions.
Draft version: Version 2 (September 9th 2022, "This does not itself…").


What did Frazer know
To give his prose its golden glow


        In his once immensely popular The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer writes:
Of all natural phenomena there are perhaps none which civilised man feels himself more powerless to influence than the rain, the sun, and the wind. Yet all these are commonly supposed by savages to be in some degree under their control. (1894: 13)
Frazer's terminology, or how he applies it, would be severely contested today, but for convenience of expression I shall work with it. We can clarify the puzzle he raises as composed of these propositions, the first of which Frazer does not state:
1. Civilized man is immensely more technologically advanced than savages.
2. Civilized man regards himself as unable to control the rain, sun, and wind at all.
3. Savages regard themselves as able (to some degree) to control the rain, sun, and wind.
Surely if anything it is civilized man who should feel more confident of controlling the weather, given his technological advances. Why does this contrast obtain? Below I shall consider Frazer's answer and introduce two other answers.
        Frazer's answer. Frazer's answer consists of the beliefs he attributes to primitive peoples. He writes:
In a society where every man is supposed to be endowed more or less with powers which we should call supernatural, it is plain that the distinction between gods and men is somewhat blurred, or rather has scarcely emerged. The conception of gods as supernatural beings entirely distinct from and superior to man, and wielding powers to which he possesses nothing comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has been slowly evolved in the course of history. At first the supernatural agents are not regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to man; for they may be frightened and coerced by him into doing his will. At this stage of thought the world is viewed as a great democracy; all beings in it, whether natural or supernatural, are supposed to stand on a footing of tolerable equality. (1894: 31-32)
Frazer believes that societies go through stages of evolution, with some societies at the earliest stages still. He does not say that the people in such a society are at a biologically earlier stage, rather in terms of their knowledge and social arrangements they are. His answer, put in my words, is "Earliest man, and societies still in the earliest stages of social evolution, have a belief system which attributes supernatural powers to themselves and also to the gods. The gods are much like them in emotional dispositions, but slightly more powerful. Within this worldview, it makes sense to think one can control the weather, by means of one's own supernatural powers or by affecting a god." (However, Frazer does not say why anyone thinks in this way. He seems to want to say that this makes sense at a certain stage, but he does not say why it makes sense.)
        The boasting answer. Sometimes a person boasts a lot about doing something before they do anything. What they do might be just okay or good, but before that achievement there is the boasting stage, of incredible achievements to come. There may also be corresponding pretence as well. Similarly, some peoples say, "We are going to make it rain," and "We are going to control the wind," as background preparation, before actually engaging in some minor technological advance. This is a proposal anyway – I don't have empirical evidence for it.
        The causal observation answer. One might observe physical cases of the little affecting the large, such as a small creature killing a large one by means of poison or severely affecting it. In which case, it makes sense to at least be open to the possibility that man or woman, so small, can have large effects on the environment, given the right causal input, or at least it makes sense early on in human history and even in some more recent societies. This does not itself explain the belief that one can have these effects, but it does mark a contrast between so-called savage and civilized and perhaps there were some observations as well. (I assume universities do not look into such matters today, beyond the effects of contributing to pollution on a large scale, but if "we" did there might be strange correlations we occasionally notice; though it would presumably be regarded as pointless to look into them. Given a modern scientific worldview, they are overwhelmingly likely to be just coincidences.)


Reference
Frazer, J.G. 1894. The Golden Bough, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan.
________________
Freedom from intervention and the rights of children


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward                        
Abstract. Henry Sidgwick raises a problem for the doctrine that all citizens have a right to as much freedom from intervention as possible, which begins with the observation that surely there is no intention to apply it to children. The writings of George Bernard Shaw suggest a solution to this problem, which I believe is now forgotten and which I in turn convey here.
Draft version: Version 1 (11th November 2022)


"A solution I felt my own I found before
There in the writings of George Bernard Shaw."
        
        What to make of the doctrine that each citizen is to have as much freedom from intervention as possible, the freedom doctrine for short? Well, we are not the first to evaluate it. Henry Sidgwick observes that whoever advocates the doctrine surely does not want to apply it to children, idiots, and the insane (Bk. 3, Ch. 5, Part 4). But, says Sidgwick, we cannot assume beforehand that all citizens outside these groups have capacities which make them suited to having this freedom, as the doctrine seems to. It is an empirical question whether a given adult is suited to this. I found a response suggested to this objection in the writings of George Bernard Shaw and my main aim is to convey it. Well, it is not framed as a response, nor does Shaw claim he devised it and I am not even sure that he clearly conceived it; but it can be so framed and that is one contribution of this brief paper, the other being an analysis of the objection.
        A simple version of the objection involves four components.
Interpretive component 1. The freedom doctrine, appropriately interpreted, does not hold that children, idiots, and the insane are to have as much freedom from intervention as possible, because they all have some quality which makes them unsuitable for this, call it quality X.
Interpretive component 2. The freedom doctrine assumes that all citizens outside these groups do not have quality X.
Assumption evaluation criterion. This should not be assumed if it is an empirical question whether they lack this quality or not.
Empirical question thesis. It is an empirical question whether they lack this quality or not.
That is the components over. A more complicated version would say that what makes children unsuitable for having this much freedom is different from what makes idiots unsuitable and different from what makes the insane unsuitable. Anyway, let's work with the simple version.
The response derived from Bernard Shaw targets interpretive component 1, which enables the objection to get going: the component which says, "You are surely making an exception for them," which leads onto "Why not for certain others?" Actually the freedom doctrine is best interpreted as holding that the same rights to freedom from intervention should be given to everyone, including children, to begin with. But you don't get those rights if you violate the rights of others and that is what children do:
Experienced parents, when children's rights are preached to them, very naturally ask whether children are to be allowed to do what they like. The best reply is to ask whether adults are to be allowed to do what they like. The two cases are the same. The adult who is nasty is not allowed to do what they like; neither can the child who likes to be nasty.
So the child soon ends up without the full package of freedom rights.
        This solution raises various questions, most obviously, how do they regain freedom later, having been treated as rights-violators? And, do we not restrict the freedoms of children beforehand, rather than after a rights-violation, from our knowledge of what children are like?


References
Channel 4 News. 2022. Greta  Thunberg interview: world on climate precipice but activism offers hope.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXezjC_s2Vw&t=839s
Shaw, G.B. 1910. A Treatise on Parents and Children. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/908/pg908-images.html
Sidgwick, H. 1907 (seventh edition). The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan and Company.
________________
An idiotic definition of an idiot
 
Author: Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. This paper rejects an attempt to define what an idiot is for when Henry Sidgwick tries to clarify the doctrine that each individual should be given as much freedom from interference as possible. 
Draft version: Version 1 (27th April 2023).


Henry Sidgwick is not known as a pleasing writer, but I quite like his statement of a doctrine of rights he is going to discuss ,in chapter 5 of book 3 of The Methods of Ethics:
…Freedom from interference is really the whole of what human beings, originally and apart from contracts, can be strictly said to owe to each other; at any rate, that the protection of this Freedom (including the enforcement of Free Contract) is the sole proper aim of Law, i.e. of those rules of mutual behaviour which are maintained by penalties inflicted under the authority of government. (1907: 274)
But my own object of discussion here is not style. Evaluating the doctrine, Sidgwick writes:
In the first place, it seems obviously needful to limit the extent of its application. For it involves the negative principle that no one should be coerced for his own good alone; but no one would gravely argue that this ought to be applied to the case of children, or of idiots, or insane persons. But if so, can we know a priori that it ought to be applied to all sane adults?
For some people, it may be tempting to respond to the question by saying, "Yes, because we are going to define children and idiots and insane persons so that they are all the cases where freedom should be restricted. Children are children, defined by age. The insane are the insane, defined by suffering from delusions. And idiots are anyone else who should have their freedom restricted." It is that definition of idiot that I wish to discuss. (By the way, to be knowable a priori is to be knowable from reflection for someone who understands the now qualified doctrine.)
        The unqualified doctrine was this:
(Unqualified freedom doctrine) All individuals should have as much freedom from intervention as possible.
The qualified doctrine is:
(Qualified freedom doctrine) All individuals should have as much freedom from intervention as possible, except children, the insane, and idiots.
But when we insert the proposed definition of idiot, we get this:
(Qualified freedom doctrine) All individuals should have as much freedom from intervention as possible, except children, the insane, and any other individuals who should have their freedom restricted.
The attempt to cover all cases by turning the category of "idiot" into anyone else who should have their freedom restricted produces an uninformative doctrine regarding exceptions, it seems. Furthermore, it does not give any individual grounds to say that their freedom has been wrongly restricted, because it does not specify other conditions in which one should have one's freedom restricted or in which it is acceptable to restrict it.
        
Reference
Sidgwick, H. 1907 (seventh edition). The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan and Company.


________________
[1] Descartes 1996: 13, AT 19. The first edition of Descartes's text was published in 1641, the second in 1642. The date 1996 refers to an English translation of the text, while "AT" refers to the standard Franco-Latin edition of Descartes's text.
[2] Downey 2002. See also Smith and Jones 1986: 35-38; Maslin 2007: 46-48.
[3] Descartes 1996: 12, AT 17.
[4] Descartes 1996: 15, AT 22.
[5] Descartes 1996: 15, AT 22-23.
[6] Descartes 1996: 18, AT 26-27.
[7] Descartes does make an argument regarding a piece of wax which also suggests an argument for the claim (1996: 20, AT 20). He tells us that, upon perceiving a fresh piece of wax, we should not identify it with the sensory impressions it currently gives: the taste of honey, the odour of flowers, the colour etc. The wax can change in such a way that it loses these qualities and yet remains, so we must consider what can persist and identify the wax with that. A suggestion here is that his use of "I" refers to the same thing in any possible world in which he exists. If we combine this suggestion with the view that one such world is a world in which all his dubitable beliefs are false, we arrive at an argument for the claim. Descartes also suggests this view, late in the Second Meditation, when he writes of how he might not have eyes (1996: 22, AT 33), but the view itself is open to doubt.
[8]I wish to object to these authors and I confess Palma is convenient for making the general point, which is probably not very fair treatment of his article.
[9]And what is it to be new? There must be some justified proposition in the article about Adam Smith which is not in the previous literature? That seems risky to me in terms of how much newness it will allow for! 
[10]An example of a desirable character quality is being able to endure one's bossy tone.
[11] There is a question of whether Dorothea herself is better understood as arguing as follows: Locke's level is ten out of ten; Edward Casaubon's level is the same as Locke's; therefore Edward Casaubon's level is ten out of ten.