Boooks 3
On Anscombe, Books-you-should-not-read, 1956 and why you should consider drawing when high
Gluck auf everyone,
I am back in Essen, from my Poland trip and I do miss it (and all of you whom I had the chance to meet) tremendously. Coming back to Germany was much nicer than I thought - oh all the joys of temporary life. In the past weeks I kinda grew out of touch with the business world but to be honest that IS for the better. I had my chance to live out a fantasy of being a Warsaw-based Corpo-influencer to some fear among my friends but a lot of smiles on my side. The travels and catchups with nearest and dearest got me also distracted from reading - but do not worry I still have something to write about in this instalment.
Dispatch
Why should you read GEM Anscombe (as a social scientist)?
The way I see it is heavily romanticised. It is a rainy day at Oxford in 1956. The Dons, Masters and Professors of Oxford University meet in the Old Sheldonian Theatre to discuss and vote on whether Harry Truman should receive an honorary degree in law from St. Cathrin’s College. This ceremony is known as the Hebdomadal Council. As the rain hits against the windows, a relatively young philosophy don of Sommerville College approaches the lectern. The main concern of the Presiding Vice Chancellor, however, is not what she will say, but much rather whether she is wearing slacks. She is in a skirt - thank God.
She begins to speak and continues for 20 minutes. Her objective is simple. She is protesting University’s decision to reward a degree to a mass murderer - whom she believes, Mr Truman is. Over the course of her short lecture, she ensures that her argument is well understood - she is not a pacifist (unlike her husband), and nor does she oppose nuclear weapons. She merely believes that killing innocent civilians is wrong, especially if done in a War that is waged without a defined goal. The strength of her position is the nuance - the opposition to contemporary ethics, and a hint of her future theory of action. Her name was Elisabeth Anscombe, and she will remain central to modern analytical philosophy.
That day however she came home defeated. The council decided almost unanimously - It would be wrong to punish Mr Truman. Anscombe herself preferred another argument used that day: The women are up to something! We need to vote them down.
This scene serves as a motivation for two recent biographies of Elisabeth and her three colleagues: Murdoch, Foot and Midgley - more about them in the next section. Anscombe remains in my view outstanding.
Her speech in 1956 is a perfect example of why she is important as a philosopher and a social scientist. Throughout her philosophical career, she focused on things that matter, rather than got carried away by theoretical concepts and debates of her younger male colleagues. In her early work, on intentional action, she focused on how to account for the accidental effects of our actions, the answers, however, are beyond simple doctrines and began a new field of philosophical and psychological research into intentionality and agency. When she was dissatisfied with the tenets of her younger followers she criticised them starting a project against singular causes, proving that human actions are beyond simple causal analysis. Until today her writing provides a good basis for accounting for complex psychological processes that only recently came to light.
I believe that Anscombe is a perfect example of a philosopher who did not lose touch with reality, which can be quite commonly seen among academics, who deal with issues like game theory or metaphysics. Her theoretical contributions aimed to remain engaged with actual questions people ask themselves, and her engagement with them remained flexible and open to the vast unknowable realms of human nature
Avoid that Art
It is back to ranting in that issue - the previous one was definitely too focused on me showing off how much I read and how much did I thought about that, which I think in the end led only to not many people reading my *essay* on the Netanyahus. That's why I will attempt to be more concise (you were right, dad) and also try to be more engaging!
I am a straight male, but I am only 21 so I have good prospects of not becoming one of THEM. Old. Bachelor. Writers. (Mostly because I lost any interest in writing fiction after turning 16) Do not get me wrong, I believe there must be a selection of amazing, straight, mature writers who manage to not make the mistakes that I will discuss in a second, yet I think their existence is much less interesting than that of their counterparts.
The story is always more or less the same. The main character (yes you guessed it in a first-person narrative) starts off as a frustrated guy, hanging around some metropolis in a neo-noir style. He is not not handsome, but definitely not rich. Then suddenly in the second chapter, his life becomes a roller coaster of great adventures, death threats, money and most importantly women. The books like Death and Penguin or Noceros are later feated for their cleverness, stylistic usage of absurdities and wordplay. These reviewers, maybe often too immersed in the world of James and Bond-girls, decide to ignore the general creepiness and amount of sexual fantasies conveyed in these books.
Bachelor Fiction is the term I personally find most fitting to describe that kind of writing and it is just unbelievable how awkward reading these things can be. In Kurkov's Death and the Penguin, the main character, very clearly a writer's alter ego, begins a sexual relationship with a much younger woman (of course she is younger) for no plot reasons whatsoever, and even the narrator claims that there is no reason why she should be attracted to him. In the Noceros things get out of hand even more violently as the author not only plays out some fantasies of threesomes, and women fighting for (SIC!) his main character. To spice things up he offers some insights into Goethe's sexual life.
To the point, however! I am not fighting against erotica in fiction, it can play an important narrative role or even serve as the main subject of a novel or large chunks of it - both in the way of 50 Shades and Lolita. What I am calling out is the overuse of the suspension of disbelief to provide (and I know that's disgusting) sexual gratification to the author. Whether you are a prude, or just annoyed by unrealistic depictions of human relationships steer away from these two books!
So anyway thank you for reading that far, I hope it can serve as a good lesson that I learned so you do not have to!
Living in a Metaphysical Society
If we talk often, and especially if you were unlucky enough to hang out with me in the late winter and spring you know that I was passionately reading a biography of four exceptional women philosophers: Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch and Elisabeth Anscombe. Yes, J. you can just skip to the next section. My love was so deep that I forced M., a friend of a friend to give me a tour of Sommerville College, where Anscombe taught. I was introduced as that-crazy-guy-who-wants-to-see-your-college to which M. reacted with omniscient: “Let me guess, it's all about Baroness Thatcher”. Thankfully for my soul, I had no intention to visit places related to the Wicked Witch, but much rather what I believe to be the birthplace of the Intention a widely celebrated book on the action.
Luckily for me almost right after the visit to the old cottage house I came across a review celebrating the genius work of two researchers from Durham: Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachel Wiseman. In their book, they outline a project of a much broader scale - it is not just a story about four women it is a record of an almost unprecedented intellectual struggle. On one side were the young men of Oxford, with Freddie Ayer as their champion. His book Language, Truth and Logic wildly popular among undergraduates was being thrown away by older academics, seen as obscene and simply wrong. A.J’s claims revolted around the futility of metaphysics and a need for philosophy to focus on what matters - language. The opposition was built by ethically and indeed metaphysically minded women: Foot and Anscombe, later joined by the atomic duo of Murdoch and Midgley.
Their contribution was to keep philosophy alive, keep it active and ready to answer real questions of the world. Their position was that of mature Wittgenstein, not a youngster of 24 criticising Russel for writing the last chapter of the value of philosophy, but that of a Philosophical Investigations and remarks On Certainty. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman follow them, from the moments they set their feet in Oxford colleges, to the 1960s when their ways parted to cross once in while later in their lives. Anscombe, a professor of philosophy at Cambridge was famous for being the disciple and curator of Wittgenstein after his death. Foot is one of the two inventors of the trolley problem. Midgley remained a prolific writer and radio host bringing the joys of philosophy to many British homes. Murdoch on the other hand kept writing like she was running out of time producing 26 novels and bringing Sartre’s philosophy to the British Isles. Learning about their lives was incredibly intriguing, seeing how they played a vital role in the intellectual history of Europe, which serves as the background for that amazing group biography.
At the National Museum
I am not a great art corespondent so let me just focus on the bits I enjoyed the most. With K. we went to see Witkacy in the National Museum in Warsaw. An amazing exhibition, beyond enhancing my interest in that figure it also is a good laugh. Especially if you have a friend by your side to discuss meaning of various annotations on the paintings indicating whether the artist was smoking and what was he sniffing before applying paint.
The artistic value of the exhibited pieces however, is undeniable, beyond the meme descriptions and sarcasm of S.I. Though we both came heavily unprepared scientifically, and intend to broaden our knowledge for future occasions like this.
ICYMI
An amazing Polish alternative music group Bluszcz is coming back with a new album. Reminiscing about spring cannot be complete without remembering their incredible semi-instrumental album Junior with my favourite track: Aspen.
Aspen - song and lyrics by Bluszcz | Spotify — open.spotify.com Listen to Aspen on Spotify. Bluszcz · Song · 2017.
On Your Computer Screen
In a way, it is also an ICYMI. There is a good Netflix show. I know. But hear me out - that one is truly great. The reason being that it was criticised in the UK for being stupid because it is how Americans think about brits. Additionally, I found the court drama simply very compelling, and also posing important ethical questions:
Anatomy of a Scandal | Official Trailer | Netflix — www.youtube.com Privilege is about to be put on trial…Based on the bestselling novel by Sarah Vaughan, “Anatomy of a Scandal” is an insightful and suspenseful series about p...