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Peter Aspden lunches with Mary Midgley for the FT (site registration required):

Midgley went to Oxford during the war, and she has fond memories of a time, she says, when there was a spirit of genuine inquiry in the air. “When I was at Oxford, I suppose some people thought about their careers but not the sort I talked to.” Her “sort” included Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe. “There has been a surge in interest in us today because here we were, four women philosophers [who became prominent], and that hasn’t happened since! The important thing was that we were not put under this kind of cheese grater, with a lot of people from Harvard shouting at us. The men who were there were conscientious objectors, disabled, or ordinants, they weren’t so keen on putting everybody down all the time. I really think it is a vice in professional philosophy, a real crime.”

There was a certain kind of machismo about the winning of arguments, I say. “It’s quite interesting isn’t it? Plato gives this very good explanation of why we shouldn’t just be trying to win arguments all the time, and then look at what Socrates does – he utterly and single-mindedly does precisely that! I think the Athenian law courts have a lot to answer for. All right, it is an important part of our reasoning, but it is not everything. It has to be balanced.”

Reboot

Pretty grumpy at this end, thus lack of blogging (my general policy is to stay offline if I'm down in the dumps) - I have been mostly horizontal with a dreadful cold!

(At the end of last week I was still able to persuade myself that I was just having raw lungs of some minor description, but really I spent the weekend almost entirely in bed; managed to get one set of grades in today, but it left me feeling the need for more horizontality. I think it will be Wednesday at the earliest before I can exercise, which has a strongly negative effect on morale....)

Closing tabs:

Cat stars of the new Coen brothers movie!

"It glows when you lick it."

Mike Tyson, philosopher.

Standardization of the "last meal."

Resurgence of the Presto direct-to-acetate audio recorder. (It is a very cool project, and the Rosanne Cash bit is especially worthwhile.)

What's your OED birthday word? (Via Anne F.)

Mind games

Great letter by Mary Midgley on women and philosophy. (Via Matt Hart.)