The Contingency of Truth

 The Contingency of Truth

 

 

Truth, at present, seems to be very elusive. That is, important truth, sincerely sought. There are, clearly and depressingly, many people disregarding or twisting truth for partisan ends. Enough is being written on that. I refer, to begin with, to the mostly honest debates about science and policy in dealing with the pandemic. The premisses of the debates are: medical and epidemiological facts (hard truths, if you like); and political and moral priorities (for crude example, economic survival versus survival of the vulnerable), which have to do, not so much with hard facts, but rather hard ethical choices. However, if the former cannot be nailed, the latter may be disastrously misinformed.

In Notting Hill; Memories of Roy Jenkins

 In Notting Hill; Memories of Roy Jenkins

 

 

 

I don’t really know the Notting Hill area of London. Until recently, I’ve only remembered having visited the Eastern periphery, over towards Queensway and Paddington. The heart of the district, Portobello Road and the terraces set round private gardens off Ladbroke Grove, were pretty much foreign territory.

Re-opening the Royal Academy - Just a Little

 What if We Reopened the Gallery and Nobody Came?

At this time of year (August/September) the Royal Academy of Arts is usually bustling, if not bursting, with visitors to the Summer Exhibition of all-comers’ art, of all qualities and none. It’s not just an exhibition to be viewed- with reverence, excitement or raised eyebrows; it’s also a fair. The art is mostly for sale. Little red “sold” dots  grow like pondweed under many of the works (especially the prints).

Walking Near Combe, West Berkshire

 Walking Near Combe, West  Berkshire

 

 

The highest point in Southern England (an area of fluid definition) is at, or vey near, Walbury Hill in West Berkshire, on the edge of that region of the Downs facing the Kennet Valley (in modern parlance, the M4 valley).

Being a Zoom Student

Being a Zoom Student Many months ago, I signed up to a summer art history course at the Courtauld Institute: a week’s intensive study of Manet and Cezanne. The course would include guided time looking at works by these artists in the Courtauld’s gem of an art gallery in Somerset House. Alas, the suffocating blanket of Lockdown fell on us all. The Summer School was in jeopardy. The Courtauld decided to move some of the courses online, including mine, discounting for the lack of the real art. So it was, in mid-July, that some 20 students filed into a virtual lecture hall via their “devices” (the preferred, rather old fashioned, word for all our phones, tablets, lap and desktops).

The Covid Trolley Problem

The Covid Trolley Problem

 

 

Every student of modern Anglophone philosophy is familiar with the “Trolley Problem”, a thought experiment designed to tease out our moral intuitions when confronted with life-and-death dilemmas. 

Hobbes's Leviathan in the time of Coronavirus

 Hobbes’s Leviathan in the Time of Coronavirus

Thomas Hobbes’s famous treatise on political philosophy, Leviathan (published 1651) has been the subject of a couple of recent articles (May 2020). In The Guardian the political philosopher David Runciman writes that the imposition of national lockdown displays the raw power of governments over their subject citizens, in ways that Hobbes would have recognised and indeed advocated.