What it's like to be a philosopher? A thinly-fictional response to reading about the death of John Searle, by means of an imitation of R.K. Narayan


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Version: version 2 (30th May 2026, slight edits)
Software used (freeware): Google docs


        The renowned city of Manchester, birthplace of the industrial revolution and home of the suffragette movement, within the glorious country of England: that is where the minor philosopher resided; but these days it is difficult to infer where his thoughts were. The Internet, the invention of the age, provided him with entertainment from all over the world. Nevertheless, he had resolutely decided to concentrate on menial housework rather than indulge himself in watching highbrow Tamil comedy. He reflected that otherwise he would soon become like Indian and Pakistani folk in the United Kingdom, wrapped up in enjoying the splendour of iconic movie stars from back home, the dances, the dazzling garments, and the beauties, hardly ever speaking or hearing a word of English and seemingly unaware that he was in the land of the white man. He was a Western philosopher! He decided to browse the news in his discipline, from brash American websites. What's this? The disgraced former professor John Searle had died. The minor philosopher had somehow missed the news. How had this happened?
        He had definitely been paying attention to news in general. In fact, he got rather involved in the capture of Thunberg, a climate activist turned anti-war campaigner. As part of a flotilla, she had sailed into a war zone, unsurprisingly captured. The poor girl had developed a rash and was placed on a bug-ridden bed and oddly made to hold up flags. Perhaps she was to her new country as miniscule as a beetle. But a beetle too is not nothing. There had also been a terrorist attack in his own city, in a district he had once spent time. The prime minister was there proudly with his wife. What was the man's name again?  Anyway, how could the minor philosopher visit without a wife, but a philosopher with a wife: an absurdity from time immemorial. His grieving emotions seemed to have been exhausted already and he had little spare for Searle.
        On the other hand, he had profited so much from Searle's clashes: publishing a professional and much downloaded article on a matter of dispute. Western philosophy was one but it did not perceive itself as one: there was a cleavage within it, the philosophy of continental Europe versus the analytic philosophy of the Anglo-Saxon elite. The two were forever at loggerheads. Searle represented the analytic and the Frenchman Derrida the continental. Of course philosophers everywhere must come to the same conclusions, that from sensation is illusion and time and plurality are unreal. Nevertheless, he was trained in the field and owed the pugilistic American. He was surely expected to write.
        It was approaching the early hours of the morning and he had not supped yet. There was some fried tuna fish in the fridge, under a tin foil. His mother had introduced him to the convenience of these tinned goods. But his father had called and he had bluffed about cooking earlier. He decided to cook some rice in a pot on his new induction cooker and some dal too. Such simple dal, simpler than any recipe book's advice: there must be within Searle's entire corpus as many little contributions as each of these lentils. Should he make a summary of the pugilist's most famous ones? Late to the party as ever; what had the others said? The young man's news site had no comment below the news story, no doubt a response to the harassment scandal that Searle had found himself embroiled in. The old man's news site featured some comments. Pigden was there, always a useful pundit.
        Should he take on the taboo issue? What was going on in the sexual harassment scandal? Decades earlier Derrida had reacted to Searle's objections by referring instead to SARL, the name of a corporation, because he felt himself to be up against no single cowboy, rather an entire organization. No doubt Searle had expert advisers. But if one goes this far, does one not risk blaming unacceptable sexual behaviour on SARL. It was SARL who did this and SARL who did that. But why would expert advisers recommend crossing the boundaries of acceptable student-professor relations? Did the attribution of corporate identity in place of individual authorship free Searle to commit various acts, leaving those who side with Derrida - no doubt the police in the situation - unable to fix individual responsibility.
        The minor philosopher recalled some online gossip: a young woman - from the far East? - had complained about American imperialism and Searle had boldly replied, "Honey, that sounds good. Shall we go to bed and try that?" or words to that effect. Searle was the perennial enemy of feminism in analytic philosophy, a postgraduate logician had warned him.
        Teaching, could one always teach within the boundaries set by our forefathers? One wonders how they even begot children, given their strict discourse. The minor philosopher remembered his days as a proofreader. He was proofreading for a Chinese legal scholar, short and plump. They were seated next to each other in a computer cluster. They were on friendly terms and she had made a sexual remark ("purely anatomical; case closed," would be the defence): she had told him that Chinese women were airports, a metaphor from her home country for being flat-chested, like the runway from which planes take off. (Yes, aeroplanes, devices that were surely once hailed as bringing together the globe.) Should he have reached over and said, "But this, this is not an airport"? What would have happened? He may have lost his job in the university back then. He had the fortune of working there for another decade, before being tactically driven out of the service and into police hands. Looking back, he may have become irritable if he ended up discovering one of those feminine wiles. One often did not understand the rationale for the rules until it was too late. Who indeed do they protect? He had bought a large pillow, made of memory foam or was that for mattresses, and he placed it by the door of his humble abode and tidied up more. No doubt if he raised the issue in public, he would be told, "How dare you demand proof." The rice was finished cooking; the dal was overcooked. This part would not be eaten. He had had more than one encounter like this with the Chinese, he wondered if they were part of an economy even, an erotic exchange system for the cultivated reader.
        It was too thorny an issue for him to touch. He would sensibly make a summary and dispel thoughts of scandal. He opened an old computer and found a summary of contributions on Hume's is-ought gap. He only needed to cut and paste; rights are rights, he would soon be entitled to a treat: Tamil comedy.


References
Derrida, Jacques. (translated) 1977. Limited Inc. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Pigden, Charles. 2025. Comment on In Memoriam: John Searle (1932-2025). Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog. September 29th, 12.19am. Available at:
https://leiterreports.com/2025/09/28/in-memoriam-john-searle-1932-2025/
Narayan, R.K. 1984. (Wikipedia and Google strangely identify the 1940s as the date for the story collection). Father's Help. In Malgudi Days. London: Penguin Books.
(There are allusions to this above. The blocky analytic style of the provinces today makes it difficult to imitate Narayan?)
Sigsbee, Dustin. 2025. John Searle (1932-2025). Daily Nous September 28th 2025.
https://dailynous.com/2025/09/28/john-searle-1932-2025/