A couple of things, first the strange world of Ordinary Language Philosophy, a discussion with Melvyn Bragg on his program In Our Time, which is a marvellous resource for every kind of intellectaul interest!
But what a beautiful image of the ordinary language philosophers! Playing war games.
Curiously, at Oxford, I knew Peter Strawson very well, even though I did not read philosophy… His mind was so clear about everything. And again, which seems to be a characteristic among the better academics, very generous to those who clearly wanted to know something but knew nothing. I don’t know whether this is relevant, but he used to play war games with his friend John Carswell. These consisted of putting little lead soldiers (or maybe pseudo-lead) in Napoleonic and Wellingtonian formations (there were other battles they re-fought as well), in suitably scouted-out terrain and with their own rules, setting out to replay the battles but allowing themselves the game room (is this the Wittgenstein element?) to do variations on the theme. I remember seeing these two distinguished, cheerful men in an area of sand dunes, replacing and replacing these tiny soldiers, some on horseback, some beside cannons, some as infantry, as they were prepared to wade through hours of intense concentration on battles fought long ago. It sounds like something out of Sterne.
It is very relevant. This man, whose mind was so clear about everything, and applied it in his career to following the dead end of Wittgenstein Mark II played with lead soldiers in his spare time. Karl Popper in his spare time in New Zealand during WW2 spent his spare time writing a critique of the damaging ideas propagated from Plato onward which resulted in the totalitarian systems of the 20th century. Compare and contrast.
The Sosa Program
Ernest Sosa has a massive track record in writing and editing collections of papers, especially on epistemology. It is practically impossible to find any connection with Popper’s ideas which is a rather strange situation. I commented on this state of affairs in an exchange of comments after a critical review that I wrote.
I am wondering where to go from here, having dipped into many of the books that he edited and some that he wrote, looking for some point of contact between his program and CR. Any ideas?
