Twentieth century great dies

John Rawls, regarded by many as the most important political philosopher of the 20th century, died from heart failure on 24 November 2002 at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. He was 81.

Harvard University president Prof. Lawrence Summers told the Harvard Gazette "I am deeply saddened by the death of John Rawls. He combined profound wisdom with equally profound humanity. Few if any modern philosophers have had as decisive an impact on how we think about justice. Scholars in many different fields will continue to learn from him for generations to come."

Born in Baltimore, Rawls entered Princeton University at the outbreak of the second world war. After graduating he joined the US army as an infantryman and was active in New Guinea and the Philippines. Returning to Princeton as a graduate student in 1946, Rawls received his PhD in philosophy in 1950.

Rawls moved to Cornell University in 1953 where he took up the post of assistant and then associate professor of philosophy until 1959. He then became professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960 before returning to Harvard in 1962, where he spent the rest of his career.

Rawls published his seminal work A Theory of Justice, written during the Vietnam War, in 1971. It sold over 300,000 copies in the US alone.

Rawls became president of the American Association of Political and Legal Philosophy from 1970–72 and president of the American Philosophical Association in 1974.

In 1991, he received the National Humanities Medial from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In recognition of Rawls’s unique achievements in contemporary philosophy, Issue 22’s forum is dedicated to his life and work.

Geordies honour Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein has been remembered by the city where he worked as a laboratory technician in 1943.

Wittgenstein worked at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle during one of the many breaks from philosophy he took during his life. A plaque was recently unveiled at the hospital, spurred on by the Newcastle-Gateshead joint bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008.

The city was not quite as welcoming of Wittgenstein at the time, when as an Austrian in wartime Britain he stood out from the crowd. Ray Monk, in his biography of Wittgenstein, quotes one of Wittgenstein’s colleagues, who said, "Prof. W. had difficulty in finding anywhere to live because as he had a foreign accent, looked a bit shabby & said he was a professor, most landladies were quite naturally suspicious."

Wittgenstein was often dismissive of philosophy’s importance, and gave it up for what he saw as more useful work school teaching and to fight in the first world war, as well for his spell in Newcastle, where he moved from Guy’s Hospital in London.

The plaque was unveiled by Mary Midgley, who used to lecture at Newcastle University.

Distinction for Wolf

The Andrew Mellon Foundation honoured professor of philosophy, Susan Wolf, of the University of North Carolina with the Distinguished Achievement Award in November last year.

Prof. Wolf, previously elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, is regarded by the Mellon Foundation as "one of the most original and distinguished philosophers of her generation."

One of five humanities scholars to receive the award, Professor Wolf – along with the other recipients – will be accorded a grant of up to $1.5 million, spread over three years, to support specific academic projects and teaching at the respective institutions with which they are affiliated.

Renowned for her provocative and highly original theses on the relationship between free will, moral responsibility and objective values, Prof. Wolf’s much discussed works have influenced contemporary analytic philosophy and ethics as well as fields such as law and psychology.

Dr Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, chairman of UNC’s philosophy department says, "Professor Wolf is an extraordinary philosopher who consistently manages to bring a fresh and penetrating eye to issues that are of central moral concern."

In Freedom Within Reason (1990) Prof. Wolf explored the concept of free will and responsibility, in the context of one’s capacity to reason and form values.

At least two of her essays, "Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility" – where she examines the implications of the insanity defence for the problem of free will and responsibility – and "Moral Saints" – which considers the question, "What would a morally perfect person be like?" – are considered to be modern classics.

More recently Professor Wolf is concerned with exhuming the age-old question, "What is the meaning of life?"

Professor Hanna Gray, the foundation’s chairwoman, said that the distinguished achievement awards "are made in recognition of individuals who have excelled at advancing human learning and understanding and whose work and influence continue to enrich the broader community of humanistic studies."

Listen to Lakatos

In celebration of the 80th anniversary of Imre Lakatos’s birth (9 November 1922), the London School of Economics has made available on their website a 20 minute BBC Open University radio address, originally given by Lakatos in 1973.

Listeners can hear Lakatos outline his views on the problem of distinguishing between science and pseudo-science, and why the solution is of vital importance to social and political issues.

Alex Bellamy, editor of the website and an old friend and colleague of Lakatos says, "The talk is essentially a summary of the central thesis of what sadly turned out to be the last annual course of Lakatos’s renowned and highly entertaining LSE lectures on scientific method, first published in 1999."

A transcript of the sound recording accompanies the resurrected broadcast.

According to Bellamy, LSE’s Lakatos site is a first in making sound recordings of a lecture given by a great academic accessible for students and the public on the internet.

Lakatos, who first came to prominence as a contender in the "Popper-Khun-Lakatos-Feyerabend" debate concerning the empirical rationality of science, lectured at the LSE from 1960 until his death in 1974, aged 51.

The talk and transcript can be found online at www.lse.ac.uk/lakatos/

Jailed guerilla leader to have case reviewed

A jailed philosophy professor and revolutionary may have his case reviewed, following a ruling by Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal.

Prof. Abimael Guzmán, otherwise known as Chairman Gonzalo, is the former leader of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas. Guzmán led the movement through one of the bloodiest periods in its history, during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A harsh crack-down by the then president Fujimori led to the capture of Guzmán in 1992.

Famously, the Peruvian authorities displayed Guzmán in a cage to the assembled public and press, and Guzmán made an impromptu speech that has become part of Sendero Luminoso folklore.

In January, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that Fujimori’s anti-terrorism measures were illegal. These measures included secret military courts with masked judges, and have been condemned for not allowing fair trial. The ruling means that hundreds of cases heard in the military courts will be reviewed, including that of Guzmán.

A new National Terrorism Court will look at the files of over 400 cases heard by the courts and order either retrials or release.

Few people expect Guzmán to be released, but supporters hope that it will at least lead to an improvement in his conditions. The International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr Abimael Guzmán claims that Guzmán has been held for long periods in solitary isolation without access to the outside world. "Many accounts report as if he has free access to communicate with the outside world; this is not true," it claims on its website.

If there is a link between Prof. Guzmán’s philosophical views and his commitment to Sendero Luminoso, it has not been made public. Sendero Luminoso is viewed by many as one of the worst terrorist organisations in the world and remains active today. The story of its rise and Guzmán’s capture has been fictionalised in Nicholas Shakespeare’s novel, The Dancer Upstairs, recently filmed by John Malkovich.

Lebanese professor detained

According to the Lebanese Daily Star, a professor of philosophy at the Lebanese University in Tripoli has been questioned by security authorities after publishing a controversial book.

When My Name Became ‘16’:­ 15 Days in Detention is an account of Adonis Akkra’s 15 days of imprisonment in August 2001 as part of a crack-down on anti-Syrian activists. The book claims maltreatment by the authorities, and for ten days of his detention he had to be transferred to a hospital for cardiac problems suffered whilst he was under arrest.

"When they took me to the cell at the Defence Ministry, they took away everything from me, my clothes, belongings and even my name," said Akkra. "My name became ‘16,’ not Adonis Rouphael Akkra."

He rejects the accusations of tarnishing the army, the authorities, the judiciary and relations with Syria.

22 other philosophy professors at the university have issued a statement denouncing the arrest of Akkra and the confiscation of his book, insisting on the right of any author, thinker, journalist or university professor to freedom of thought. The publisher of the book, Dar al-Talia, was also shut down on the day Akkra was brought in for questioning.

Akkra is a supporter of the Free Patriotic Movement, which opposes Syrian involvement in the internal affairs of Lebanon.

Minister backs philosophy

A thumbs-up for philosophy from the British education secretary has been overshadowed by a perceived criticism of the classics.

In an interview in the Sunday Times Charles Clarke said, "One of the main purposes of university is to encourage people to think. But education for its own sake is a bit dodgy, too. The idea that you can learn about the world sitting in your study just reading books is not quite right."

Challenged by the interviewer as to whether philosophy fulfilled his criteria as a useful subject he said that it did. But as he explained when later questioned in parliament about the interview, when asked about the classics, "I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said it wasn’t so clear."

Mr Clarke, who himself studied philosophy as an undergraduate, was criticised by defenders of the classics, obscuring his positive message that philosophy encourages people to think.

The praise of a politician, it seems, can be forgotten, but a slight is doomed to be repeated.

Yes, it matters

A distinguished panel gave a qualified "yes" answer to the question "Does philosophy matter?" at a recent public discussion organised by the British Academy and TPM.

"We wouldn’t be asking this question if the answer were obvious," said Oliver Letwin MP, the Conservative shadow home secretary and possessor of a philosophy PhD.

"I don’t think that it yields recipes for doing anything, certainly not in politics," said Letwin. Rather, he thought philosophy important for improving the quality of debate. "As I see it, the biggest single problem of democracy in Britain today is the level of political discourse rather than the substance of the positions taken."

Janet Radcliffe Richards argued that "the reason why philosophy matters is that whenever you make any decision about what you do, you cannot do so purely on an empirical basis."

For Radcliffe Richards, a major problem with public debate is that "philosophical questions are mistaken for empirical questions."

Prof. Richard Sorabji thought that philosophy, in the form of just war theory, already had an impact on society. Speaking soon after the mass protests around the world about Iraq, he said, "In the last couple of weeks philosophy has been a major constraint on the move to war."

He claimed that "we have had a blip in 20th century philosophy" and that historically philosophy has always been about how to live. "The ancient stoics invented cognitive therapy."

Prof. Richard Wollheim added, "I don’t think that philosophy is likely to lead us to an optimistic view of the world. I think it is likely to lead us to a better assessment of the possibilities for changing the world for the better."

Several hundred disappointed people were unable to get into the event, chaired by Prof. Edward Craig, due to the massive demand for tickets.