"But we're philosophers": social anthropology essay on aesthetics at the University of Manchester Author's name (parents' draft). Terence Rajivan Edward (now Doctor) Dialogue on names (fictional): "Now why do you want a name?" So that my works can be identified - that is one reason. "You need a number really." Author's name (my first draft). 0161__Rajivan Abstract. This paper is another attempt at imitating Helen Beebee's papers, but this time in social anthropology. It is probably of interest to philosophers as well. It presents experiences of mine of aesthetics as an official course at the University of Manchester, followed by an analysis. I argue that the main lessons I take do not require the rich fieldwork of the social anthropologist. Anthropologists are expecting one question or some questions in the philosophy of music and the big question there is quite different. Draft version: version 4 (31 May 2026 minor edits; version 3 September 13th 2025) Software used (freeware): Google docs PDf at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395459313_But_we're_philosophers_social_anthropology_essay_on_aesthetics_at_the_University_of_Manchester And: https://www.academia.edu/143932140/_But_were_philosophers_social_anthropology_essay_on_aesthetics_at_the If we'll be together forever, then I beg Don't make me walk on my second leg 1. Introduction I have been trying to write essays in the style of Professor Helen Beebee and this is another attempt. "Why do you think these are Beebee style essays?" I imagine someone asking (or someone's asking). To begin with, they are not small and pointy; they are big and blocky. "I have much finer aesthetic sensitivity than you, but I cannot use any of it in conversation on academic matters, so why do you get to talk of pointy versus blocky?" There is a minimal amount of such sensitivity that can get through and this is it? (Doctor Graham Stevens to me, first Open Minds Conference, 2006: "I can mathematically define elegance as we use it.") In this paper, I shall present my experiences of aesthetics at the University of Manchester and their significance for social anthropology. Before presenting the order of discussion in the later parts of this paper, it will be useful to say something about the institution referred to and about aesthetics. "Yes, what sort of thing is that?" The University of Manchester has "Est 1824" on its logo, presumably to indicate established in 1824. Last year, 2024, there were celebrations for its 200th anniversary. But in its current condition it is the product of a merger between the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST, which occurred in 2005. Let me now address aesthetics. A social anthropology PhD student once told me, "Everyone is a philosopher," when I was an undergraduate. This is perhaps an especially plausible claim when it comes to aesthetics, here understood as the philosophy of aesthetic properties, such as beauty and ugliness, and also philosophy of specific artistic fields: music, literature, painting, photography, film, dance, etc. Who amongst us does not sometimes reflect on aesthetic qualities and their significance? For example, "These cliquey people do not laugh at my jokes, but is humour objective or subjective?" Below I am not interested in all aesthetic discussions at the University of Manchester; I am going to focus predominantly on aesthetics as an official activity within this university, which comes with a label "Aesthetics," for example an aesthetics tutorial. The next part of this paper will provide some background to the experiences that are my focus. The third part will tell you about my experiences. The fourth part will present some significance for social anthropology. My main lesson is that the most significant material for social anthropology does not require all this experience, even though the anthropologist is extremely keen on such participatory experience. 2. Background experiences 2.1. Undergraduate degree choice. In the UK, the university academic year usually lasts from September to June. I joined the University of Manchester in September 1998 to study for an undergraduate degree in social anthropology. Also I was interested in philosophy, but I chose to focus exclusively on social anthropology. My father questioned the choice when I received a 2.1 for my overall degree in 2001, but in retrospect, I think the choice of university and degree was one of the best choices I have made. I received an offer from Queens' College, University of Cambridge, but I turned it down. The offer was in archaeology and anthropology but I telephoned and asked for a copy of the philosophy syllabus. I received a telephone call soon afterwards, the next day perhaps, saying that the college was worried about me. This level of surveillance! (Is it not like a business where you can just order a syllabus?) I suspect Carrie Jenkins' novel Victoria Sees It deals well with the horror that would have happened if I had gone there. (It is not available in this country, UK, despite being published by a company within Penguin Press and being nominated for various awards.) Maybe I should have gone to another university instead of Manchester, but a lot of energy goes into rejecting Cambridge and the choice may well be remembered by many, e.g. my high school, simply as Not-Cambridge. The choice of anthropology as degree was also good, I think. I later switched to philosophy and I suppose I can hang on there as an academic contributor, even without an academic job, because of the anthropology I know, addressing philosophical issues to do with it. (With today's high student fees, I would probably have done law instead. The last time anyone of this social class background in UK does anthropology?) WHY MANCHESTER? I had come here on an open day in 1997 and experienced a talk by Doctor Karen Sykes, now Professor, and I was impressed. She is a Canadian with a Princeton degree. Later that day, I went to Blackwells and there was an anthology of Japanese short stories edited by Ted Goosen in the bookshop and I bought it and felt that this was a good place, though the anthology is somewhat puzzling to me. The University of Manchester offer was the first offer I received. It was a lovely letter by Professor David Rheubottom, an American. I have the feeling in numerous nearby possible worlds, if the concept makes sense, I am seduced by the University of Manchester, even now. (I had found a book of Japanese short stories by Ivan Morris in the main library of the town where I mostly went to high school, around aged 16.) EARLY WEEKS. My first two or three weeks as an undergraduate in Manchester were difficult. I was in an apartment-like student residence, with 5 bedrooms and a kitchen and a living room without a wall between kitchen and living room ("Is that what was difficult?"): the first flat of Cornbrook House, above Blackwells, a set of student accommodations now destroyed. The room next to my room was occupied by a British Indian, I believe, who rarely left his room and soon left the apartment. Opposite to my room was a British Pakistani (an economics student I believe). Opposite to the Indian's room was an overseas Greek (architecture student). Downstairs was a white medical student. I had not entirely pleasant relations with the Pakistani and his Pakistani relatives or friends. My Greek flatmate told me that the white aspiring medical student who lived downstairs encouraged them to cause trouble for me. This medical student's name was ____. (He liked Radiohead. His girlfriend was a noisy lover, it seems. He had a clever-looking white friend, also a medical student, ____, who told me that most Asians are fascists. He also told me that most Asians in medical school are arrogant. I said, "Social anthropologists are not like that." My medical student flatmate said, "Apart from one." His friend told me, "Probably you just have to take a beating," in response to my strained relations with the British Pakistanis.) After about two or three weeks of intense relations, one of the Pakistanis, who did not live in my apartment, broke my bedroom door and then they all ran out and never bothered me again. An Algerian moved in (studying an English language course; he later studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate and MSc student) and said that the Pakistani who broke my door tried to help me. But how did the intense relations with the Pakistani students start? My Pakistani flatmate's BIG COUSIN came into the kitchen while I was cooking. I was rude to him. Looking back, he reminds me of Professor Julian Dodd. He did well in German. My British Pakistani flatmate told me, "He likes German and you don't. That's the problem." After the Pakistanis left, I more or less had control of the flat and the white medic moved out, blaming me and my Greek friend to my Algerian friend. A Canadian moved in (an engineering student, here for one year, who soon dated a German student; they are now married with two children and based in Calgary). During the intense relations with the British Pakistanis, I called the University of Cambridge and asked if I could go there actually but they said, "NO." 2.2. Other undergraduate experiences. Social anthropology (1998-9). In social anthropology class, I met a Finnish girl called ____ and also Moira McDonagh, who was my best friend on the course and sat next to me always. She joined late, after two months or something. Not everyone on the course liked her. She told me that her BIG SISTER went to the University of Oxford but only got a 2.1 and the family thought her potential was not realized there. (Professor Miriam Ronzoni, Professor Maria Sobolewska: are they this big sister type?) Moira started off with 50 something marks but ended up with better grades than me, by 2001. We did Doctor Mark Jamieson's course and we were the only ones at the last tutorial. She said, "It's old fashioned anthropology." (Professor Maia Green likes that though.) Jamieson's course was probably the one that impressed me most, but I just wrote a series of aphorisms as an essay. Jamieson's course was the second half of a year long introduction to social anthropology course, if I remember correctly. There was an introduction to social anthropology course given by Doctor Pete Wade, which impressed some keen others on the course but not me at that time. He did lectures for a large audience of students and our tutorials. Mark Jamieson did the second half. In his opening lecture, he told us of the claim: "Kinship is to social anthropology as logic is to philosophy." I probably felt there was a bit more structure with Jamieson's materials and his teaching. (Nevertheless, aphorisms can beat you, though maybe not these ones?) At a disco, a psychology student asked me to kiss her but I said no. ("What is this doing here? Back to hospital for you," you say? It might interest someone.) Feminist literature (1998-9): I was allowed to do one outside unit each year, everything else was social anthropology. I took feminist literature, largely because of timetable concerns about other courses. There were no males on this course apart from me. I dominated discussions, as usual. I got 68% for the course essay and maybe 67% overall. 70% and above is a first class (and is perhaps met with death, if a male scores this high). The course was given by sociologist Doctor Penny Tinkler. I was impressed by the linguistic analysis I was introduced to, which is meant to be more objective. You analyse the implications of the text. There were about 12 people on the course, 2 extremely attractive Asian girls, one a local Pakistani and one from Singapore, a sociologist. (In the second year, I also had a room in an apartment-like flat in Cornbrook House. The Singaporean visited and said that she did not like the Asian sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, which made a strong impact on me. My flatmates and I liked it.) Philosophy (1999-2000). In the 1999-2000 academic year, I took an outside course in Early Modern Philosophy taught by Doctor Julian Dodd. He was a new lecturer, uncomfortable here I suspect, and always happy to see me. At that time, the course was one year long and we did Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume. (What happened to Descartes and Leibniz?) There were at least three other Asians in class and one black girl, Onika was her name if I recall correctly. She had a friend who might have been Asian too, but East Asian. She asked Dodd if he wrote poetry, to which he gave no clear answer. I liked Dodd's premise-by-premise reconstructions in lectures and how he would identify a premise or inference he was against. Influenced by him, I responded to something the anthropologist Christina Toren said in a 1999 conference by means of a written piece using some syllogisms. Doctor Sarah Green (now professor) said that she was not convinced. Moira liked them. I can't remember them well now. Dodd said that my first essay, on Descartes, was flippant. I got 66%. It was only a practice essay though. My second essay, the assessed one, got 72%. Maybe the best essay on Locke ever written by an undergraduate and I have seen some good ones! I told a friend at the London School of Economics one of my three objections, when I visited, and she liked it. (She was studying philosophy and economics, and would later become an economist. She had started dating a philosophy student; they met in logic class, and he would become a philosopher.) Onika said that 72% is impressive from Dodd. I got a first class on that course overall. In the examination, there were six questions and you had to pick two, each worth 50%. A Muslim girl told me that she just did one but really well. Nowadays I interpret her as follows: regarding these thorough solid academic craftsmen types, like Dodd, there is a massive price they pay somewhere. (E.g. A compulsory question for being a leading American philosopher literary critic is what you make of Edgar Allan Poe and Martha Nussbaum does not address this.) By the way, I sat next to a guy in class on quite a few occasions, a white Englishman, and he was doing Dodd's course as an outside unit as well and he said that it is not to his tastes. Social anthropology (1999-2000). In a course run by Katarin Lund (spelling?), whom I got along with poorly in my first year, I complained about John Gledhill's textbook on political anthropology. I said it has to be aesthetically attractive to succeed. And I became interested in aesthetics and its significance in academic research. I went to the research seminar regularly and decided to give my own paper on Knowledge and Pleasure. I argued that pleasure in academic research is when there is a gestalt switch. (Necessary condition at best?) I referred to Durkheim and Victor Turner. No reference to more contemporary anthropology. I attended a third year course on the body by Doctor Sarah Green (now Professor), but I did this optionally I think. She seemed interested in overcoming the mind-body divide and I introduced her to the claim from philosophy that the mind is the brain. I learnt about Susan Bordo from Green's course, whom I greatly enjoyed reading. (Nowadays I think like this: softer than the softest analytic philosophy? Nowadays I read Michael Morris's philosophy of language introduction and think: can I write a softer introduction?) I mostly wore a black shirt to Green's course and never washed it. I made a remark that impressed Green, which was that the concept of information is what is being used to overcome the divide between social science and biology. Doctor Jeanette Edwards joined the social anthropology department in that year, as senior lecturer. She told me that Karen Sykes does not know everything because no one knows everything, but if she ends up supporting brief remarks by others over my thorough material, should I just go back to my earlier position? Philosophy (2000-1). I did an outside course with Doctor Julian Dodd again, on Wittgenstein. It was one year long. There was a girl who hated Wittgenstein on the course. I just walked on the street trying to be intense like him, until I gave up from discomfort. Other students found the course difficult. I scored 76% on the essay but it was not as good as the Locke essay and I put a point I read from Hannah Arendt without referencing her. Dodd was impressed by this point and said that F.H. Bradley said that. After one tutorial, Doctor Julian Dodd called me back after class. I thought I was in trouble but he told me that I should come out of the closet (a reference to Donald Davidson perhaps rather than homosexuality, a philosopher whom I expressed admiration for) and become a philosopher. In this academic year, I lived further away from university, in rented accommodation which was not university accommodation. I had a Chinese Malaysian friend, an engineer, whom I let stay in my living room for free in my second year at Cornbrook House. He found a strange house with rooms to rent and rented one. I rented another, downstairs. Soon a black girl with a surname Edwards (not that common a surname) rented a third room, which was upstairs as well. She had a friend called Aylee, who said that she tried philosophy but found it weird, not to her tastes. I think it was this year that I met Doctor Helen Beebee, introduced by Dodd as our philosophy of science specialist. 2.3. Postgraduate experiences. Philosophy (2001-2). Before I switched to philosophy proper, Doctor Jeanette Edwards told me that anthropologist Doctor Sharon MacDonald was married to an analytic philosopher, Doctor Mark Beaney. (Troubles in anthropology? Time for a fresh start!) At UCL, I did four courses: in logic and metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and a dissertation course. I did not do aesthetics, if it was even available. My friend who has studied economics and philosophy at LSE had earlier told me that analytic philosophers don't understand aesthetics. The courses at UCL had students from other University of London courses and we had lectures given by Kings College London lecturers and Birkbeck lecturers. I met Doctor Peter Goldie in Ethics in 2001 and annoyed him. He asked, "Which logical law is this..." I was at the front. Someone said, "The law of non-contradiction." Goldie said, "No." I said. "The law of the excluded middle." He said, "Yes" and I celebrated, when Goldie agreed. Goldie later came to Manchester as star professor and did a lot of work on aesthetics. (I ignored him when he turned up here for the first few months, which annoyed him too or appeared to.) In logic and metaphysics, a lecturer was Professor Jennifer Hornsby, Julian Dodd's former supervisor or mentor. She got him working on the identity of truth. I e-mailed her a question about Frege. And she said to the whole class: a student has asked a good question. (A French guy in class seemed the cleverest to me by far though.) I went after class and told her it was me. I was supervised by Doctor Mark Kalderon and then Doctor Tim Crane at UCL (now both professors). They read my essays for various courses. I wrote an essay as a set of aphorisms, which infuriated Kalderon but he engaged with one of them and was impressed with my political philosophy essay, where I pointed out a methodological regress in Rawls. I went back to Kalderon for my dissertation supervision and he said that I was improving. My undergraduate dissertation was on Kant's ethics. By the way, I was taught political philosophy by Miriam Cohen-Christofidis, daughter of G.A. Cohen. I found her beautiful, or healthy or whatever, but strangely lost interest in the course in the second half. 2.4. PhD course: philosophy, first months (2002). I rejoined the University of Manchester as a PhD student in September or October 2002. I started off with ethical relativism as my topic. I wrote a long essay for Doctor Anthony Hatzimoysis on R.M. Hare. He said it could go straight in as a chapter and he had never seen better, or never seen better at this stage. (In my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful essays ever written; but others have their own tastes. I was 22! Professor Hillel Steiner later expressed interest in seeing it.) I switched to conceptual relativism as my focus by Christmas. I showed a Belorussian PhD student called Jana and her reaction was mixed, but she was interested in my point about Hare's assumption. Hare assumes that mixing philosophy of language with ethics will make philosophy of language more practically relevant, but might it not make ethics less practically relevant instead? She said that what they do in philosophy is just mathematics. She dropped out of her PhD course, in whatever discipline it was in, and stopped being friends with a whole circle of friends apparently, most of whom are academics now. She used to date the film studies student David Butler, now professor. 3. Aesthetics at the University of Manchester 3.1. The aesthetics conference (2003). I was encouraged by Doctor Julian Dodd to help him out at a large aesthetic conference, which occurred early on in my PhD degree. It was quite early on in my PhD, 2003. I helped Dodd by making badges for the conference attendees, developing a faster way of doing so, which impressed Dodd. Also I was at the front desk, greeting anyone who attended the conference. I saw Professor Paul Boghossian give the opening lecture, something to do with music. He seemed large and powerful, but I don't remember what his main points were. (Dodd had recently switched to music as a focus, having been working on the identity of truth. His focus was on what sort of things musical works are. Note: his approach is analogous to his early work on propositions as what is true or false, not sentences. The English sentence "Snow is white" and the French sentence "La neige est blanche" express the same proposition, so the proposition itself cannot be the English words or the French words. What is it though? An abstract entity. Similarly, a radio plays a Bach symphony but are the sounds it produces the symphony, because the sounds occur at 7am, say, and the symphony is also played at a concert at 8pm? The symphony, Dodd thinks, is an abstract thing: a type of sound sequence, which has instances, such as when the radio makes that sound sequence. Philosophers use the word "token" rather than instance.) Doctor Kathleen Stock was a co-organizer. She tried hard to shut me up at various points, but gave the paper that most impressed me at the conference. I met Professor Michael Morris, whom Dodd had to become friends with after dropping out of Oxford and joining Sussex. Dodd, Morris, and I discussed the problem of how we are going to make sense of music with lyrics and I asked whether you just divide it into an instrumental part, to which our philosophy of music applies, and poetry, to which our philosophy of poetry applies. Morris said that some people would recommend that. 3.2. Knowledge and Reality teaching (2005-6). I started teaching in the 2004-5 academic year, in 2005, as a graduate teaching assistant for Doctor Thomas Uebel and Doctor Chris Daly, before finishing my PhD - postgraduates doing teaching is normal in the School of Social Sciences, where philosophy was based. The course was called Knowledge and Reality. I also taught it in 2005-6, for a new lecturer, Doctor Catharine Abell, who was a specialist in aesthetics. There was no aesthetics on this course. When we first met, she expressed unhappiness with the recommended epistemology textbook and wanted another textbook, which I believe had Kahnemann and Tversky experiments. She tried one on me, the one with the bank worker who was a student protestor, but told me the answer before I was fooled. I told her that she should put sense datum theory on the course. She was not keen but I said the students like it, so she agreed. (Epistemology 101: liked or not liked, I think the topic must be there.) Later she told me that the course could be done in accordance with my preferences when I am lecturer. (It is not my preferences. Analytic epistemology 101: you have to do the definition of knowledge and Gettier cases; you have to do foundationalism and coherentism; you have to do scepticism.... A later thought on a course I taught, analytic political theory: you have to do G.A. Cohen as essential reading for analytic Marxism week. Can one teach anatomy without leg anatomy? "But philosophy is not science." There is just a set of things we expect an undergraduate who has done an analytic epistemology and metaphysics course to know, and likewise two years of analytic political philosophy.) Abell ended up writing an apology to me for behaving unprofessionally, which was a most strange event. Did it even happen? She set a practice essay and all my students handed in the practice essay, which I had to mark, but it did not seem that the practice essays for the other teaching assistants were mostly submitted. I sent out essay writing advice but she said that she doesn't think that helps. I attended the lectures and the course was very good overall and better for having sense datum theory on it. 3.3. Aesthetics teaching (2006-7). I finished my PhD in 2006 and it was awarded in early 2007. In 2007, I taught for Doctor Julian Dodd again. This was my first experience teaching aesthetics, a second year course for undergraduates. There were ten weeks to the course. There was discussion of the definition of art, whether aesthetic properties are objective or subjective and.... FIVE WEEKS ON MUSIC. I told Dodd that you cannot have five weeks on music. It is a second year undergraduate course on aesthetics. Five weeks is too imbalanced. I showed the course guide to two friends, both academics, and they found it highly imbalanced. Dodd's reply was this (not his exact words): "We can discuss some of the issues affecting other arts under the heading of music. For example, when we discuss whether music can represent anything, we can discuss representation in other arts." Each week I had four tutorials in a row, starting at 9 o'clock, all in one room. I sat at a desk at the front. Surrounding me at a reasonable distance were chairs, in a U shape. In the second tutorial, opposite me sat a blonde white girl who persistently raised the issue of objectivity versus subjectivity, as if it were my fault that many of the later readings assume there are objective aesthetic properties (or qualities or features, if you prefer those words instead). At one point, I said I don't know whether aesthetic properties are objective or subjective but that is the reading; we cannot go back to the issue of objectivity and subjectivity; we have to focus on the specific theme of this week. The girl next to her - her slightly foreign-looking sidekick, it seemed to me - said, "You obviously think aesthetic properties are objective." They seemed quite discontent, as did a further blonde girl, a philosophy specialist. This was before teaching was generally difficult. (Have-your-cake-and-eat-it way getting rid of you? Can we have the source code for tutorial allocation please, or is this the wild conspiracy theory of a paranoid person?) 3.4. Aesthetics teaching (2007-8). I taught the aesthetics second year undergraduate course again. This time the lecturer was Doctor Catharine Abell. There was no week devoted to music. Instead lots of weeks on pictures and photography. None on literature, none on film, none on music. (With Dodd, I wondered whether he was still learning aesthetics hence an imbalance towards his specialism: give him a break here. But these are topics which Abell can do.) More on pictures and photography combined than there previously was on music: 7 weeks probably. I didn't say anything this time, having got nowhere with complaining about the excess of music in the previous year. (I wonder whether someone is just working out the point at which I give up. When some relative demands I am put back in hospital?!) The students and Catharine Abell did not appear to get along well, but one of my students told me that he liked the course and that the lecturer looks good. I hadn't really thought about the matter till then, because what preoccupied me was the imbalance in the course. By the way, in 2011 I think, I made a discrimination complaint to the University of Manchester. Professor Alan Hamlin handled it. I drew attention to the Aesthetics courses and asked, how can you expect people who produce such imbalanced courses to be just (fair)? He refused to share that letter with others: letter 3 he labelled it. ANYWAY, where is the skill with proportionality in designing the course that one would expect of a fair-minded character? ("They can do that but..."?) By the way, Hamlin got annoyed in our first or second face-to-face meeting when I demanded that my middle name, Rajivan, be added to his draft report, or whatever it was. (Do these people have any fears about racism, and if not why not? Has he not heard about the Asif Qureshi case?) 3.5. Philosophy of music teaching (2008-9). I taught a third year course for the philosophy department, or discipline area as it is called. It was run by Doctor Julian Dodd, entitled Analytical Aesthetics, and it was entirely focused on themes in the philosophy of music. 4. Significance for social anthropology 4.1. Ignore most experience. I have detailed my experiences above, but the main lesson for contemporary social anthropology does not require all this experience, I think. Doctor Julian Dodd, now Professor, worked on the philosophy of music, focusing on purely instrumental music. What questions do you think are part of the philosophy of music? A social anthropologist (or cultural anthropologist, which might be accurate for contemporary anthropology in Manchester) or just about anyone, would guess this perhaps: "Classical music is prestigious, but is it objectively better than other music?" Such a question can be made more pointed by examining who listens to what music, classical music often being the preference of affluent social classes. (See Bourdieu) Any other questions. Maybe: "Is there some aesthetic gain from the absence of words in classical music?" Maybe from scientists: "Is music simply mathematics?" But I think other questions are so far behind this classical-objectively-better question in terms of how easily they come to mind to most people (unless it is a very similar question, e.g. what, if anything, makes some music better?). That is not the question Julian Dodd has mostly focused on and an anthropologist, or just about anyone else, would struggle to think of his question if listing questions by themselves in the philosophy of music. I haven't asked them, but I am strangely confident on this issue: maybe an anthropologist can be honest about this and help me out. This difference in the question addressed should probably eclipse just about everything else. (Compared to the classical-objectively-better question, there is a lot more literature in philosophy of music on Dodd's question: what sort of thing is a musical work, a written score or an idea in the composer's mind or an abstract entity - type of sound sequence - or something else? I suppose someone recalling Socratic dialogues might pose the question: "What defines music? What distinguishes music from mere noise?" But this is not the same as Dodd's question, even if it has implications for this.) What is the point of all the anthropology-like fieldwork, when this difference to do with the question is the big issue and you can find it out without the fieldwork experience. 4.2. Functionalism and worldview description. The kind of social anthropology which dominated British anthropology from the 1920s to the 1960s was known as functionalism (see Kuklick 2010). It is divided into two kinds: Bronislaw Malinowski's functionalism and structural-functionalism. I shall focus on structural-functionalism, which is often perceived as dominating British anthropology from the 1930s till the end of the functionalist period. Structural-functionalism says that institutions within a society form a social structure, and institutions and roles within an institution function to maintain that social structure. A structural-functionalist analysis would probably say that Dodd's question functions to keep out the artsy middle-class student who is interested in philosophical issues to do with music. Such a student typically has much higher levels of sensitivity to aesthetic properties (or qualities or features) and various other properties than I do. They notice that funny sound towards the beginning of a certain rock'n'roll song straight away, which I don't notice unless I pay careful attention to the song; and ALSO they interpret it. But what good is their sensitivity when dealing with the question what sort of thing is a work of instrumental music: is it the written score or is it an idea in the composer's head or is it an abstract sort of thing, a type of sound sequence, of which there can be tokens, the symphony playing on the radio at 7am being one token and the same symphony being played at a concert at 8pm being another token? The set of talents which make that person more astute about music than I am seem irrelevant, or minimally relevant at best to Dodd's question. What skills are relevant for engaging with it? The skills of your average competent philosopher, philosophers mostly being very posh by the way. It is for the posh average philosopher (and the occasional working class upstart perhaps). Under the leadership of Dame Professor Marilyn Strathern, functionalism has given way to worldview description, her own work seeking dramatic conceptual contrasts. To illustrate: this is part of the worldview of the English middle class - a human baby is a new person - and this is the worldview of a Trobriander: a human baby is not a new person (Strathern 1992: 59). I am not sure what worldview description would say about the confrontation with Dodd's question apart from that an assumption is challenged: the assumption that people who are more astute about music are better suited to philosophy of music. IMPORTANT PERHAPS: I think the difference in the anticipated question and the question encountered raises a problem for worldview description. It is overly focused on propositions, things that can be true or false. This is a proposition that the English middle class are committed to versus this is a proposition that Trobrianders are committed to (e.g. babies are not new persons), but what about questions - what about this is our question and that is their question??? (Voltaire said judge a man by his questions!) The anthropology Strathern has introduced seems overly focused on propositions and underfocused on questions. 4.3. Accreditation system. To my knowledge, Dodd does not credit whoever first came up with the question he addresses. Have a look through his 2007 book. Let's emphasize the question even more. (Instrumental music question) What sort of thing is a work of instrumental music: is it the written score or is it an idea in the composer's head or is it an abstract sort of thing, a type of sound sequence, of which there can be tokens, the symphony playing on the radio at 7am being one token and the same symphony being played at a concert at 8pm being another token? Given that this question would not occur to us, should not a lot of credit go to whoever first presented the question? Or else whoever first presented the question in analytic philosophy? Also Dodd does not give credit to whoever first devised this answer, apart from perhaps to call it Platonist. (Platonist answer) There can be instances (or tokens, to use the philosopher's word) of a type of thing. For example, this is a token of a certain letter: A. This is another token of that letter: A. This is a third token: A. They are all tokens of a type of a letter, but what is the type itself? Something abstract. A given work of instrumental music is a type as well, a type of sound sequence. A token of it plays on the radio, when the radio makes that sound sequence. A token of it plays in a concert, when the musicians make that sound sequence. I think this answer is unlikely to occur to social anthropologists: they will simply contemplate whether it is the written score or an idea in people's minds. (That's interesting. We start with an assumption about what the options are and it does not include the option Dodd takes, the Platonist option! Regarding Platonism, a student once asked me, "Does anyone believe this any more?") Where is the credit for whoever first formulated this in the philosophy of music? Dodd's 2007 book is an attempt at a thorough defence of it and hopes to get credit by thoroughness. "Here is the best formulation of the Platonist answer and here is an objection and here is a defence..." But should not some credit go to whoever conceives this option that we don't even conceive? (What is Dodd without the question already formulated?! And what is Dodd with the question but without his option already formulated in brief?) Some bullet points to capture things learnt: * You (e.g. Professor Jeanette Edwards) have an assumption about what question is going to be big in the philosophy of music and it is not that. (The big question for philosophers does not even occur to you.) * You have an assumption about what the options are with the big question, once you learn it, and another option is taken. * You have an assumption about who is going to be more suited to philosophy of music - people who know a lot about music, with higher-than-average sensitivity to musical qualities - and it is not them. * I have an assumption about how accreditation is going to work and it does not seem that the philosophical world operates in line with that assumption. (Whoever introduced the question Dodd answers is not credited by him nor is whoever first presented his answer.) * Not much experience is required to uncover the bullet points above. (If there is an assumption challenged by my richer experience, I assumed an analytic philosophy course is like a general anatomy course in certain respects: much as you "cannot" have five weeks on the arm in a 10 week general anatomy course, you also cannot have 5 weeks on music in a second year aesthetics course; much as you cannot omit the leg in a general anatomy course, you have to put G.A. Cohen as the essential reading on analytic Marxism week. It does not matter whether the rule is enforced or not; you are just in the wrong "business" if you don't do this. So much for that assumption!) References Arendt, Hannah. 1971/1977. The Life of the Mind. Orlando: Harcourt. Available at: https://pensarelespaciopublico.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/the-life-of-the-mind-hannah-arendt2.pdf Bordo, Susan. 1987. The flight to objectivity: essays on Cartesianism and culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. Available at: https://archive.org/details/flighttoobjectiv0000bord Bourdieu, Pierre. (Translated by Richard Nice). 1984. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Routledge: London. Davidson, Davidson. 1973-4. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5-20. Available at: https://eltalondeaquiles.pucp.edu.pe/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/On-the-Very-Idea-of-a-Conceptual-Scheme.pdf Dodd, Julian. 2007. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2002. Richard Hare on Ethics and Philosophy of Language. Unpublished essay. Gledhill, John. 1994. Power and its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics. London: Pluto Press. Available at: https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Power-And-Its-Disguises-Anthropological-Perspectives-on-Politics-by-John_Gledhill.pdf Goodrich, P. and Mills, L.G. 2001. The Law of White Spaces: Race, Culture, and Legal Education. Journal of Legal Education 51(1): 15-38. (Addresses the Qureshi case.) Goosen, Theodore W. 1997. The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://archive.org/details/the-oxford-book-of-japanese-short-stories-2002-edition Jenkins, Carrie. 2021. Victoria Sees It. Toronto: Strange Light Kuklick, Henrika. 2010. Functionalism. In A. Barnard and J. Spencer (eds.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Second edition. London: Routledge. Available at: https://chairoflogicphiloscult.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/encyclopedia-of-social-and-cultural-anthropology.pdf Morris, Ivan. (ed.) 1962. Modern Japanese Short Stories: An Anthology. Vermont and Tokyo: Charles E Tuttle. Available at: https://archive.org/details/modernjapanesest00morr Morris, Michael. 2006. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 1992. After Nature: English kinship in the late twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.