Philosophy at Cambridge Newsletter of the Faculty of Philosophy

Issue 7 May 2010

From the Chairman Simon Blackburn

Three splendid lectures enlivened the year. of meeting the target of £2 million gave a talk on music and required to fund the 1896 Chair of human values to a packed audience at the Philosophy. As I write this, the School Alumni Weekend, bravely overcoming a of Arts and Humanities has passed our distracting balletic performance by the request for the position to be formally technician who was apparently needed to named the Bertrand Russell Professorship cope with the innovation of showing slides of Philosophy up to the General Board, and music together. As compensation, the where we expect it to be approved. We subsequent dinner in Roger’s honour was decided that Russell deserved the honour ravished by an impromptu performance of not only for his intellectual eminence, songs from Russia and Kazakhstan, by the but also for his visibility as a public face very talented partner of one of our guests. of philosophy. Barry Smith’s lecture on the philosophy Meeting the goal of this appeal is a of wine-tasting at the Cambridge Festival terrific achievement, and one of which of Ideas also saw academic delight we in the Faculty, and our alumni, can be mingled with more sensual pleasure as very proud. It is particularly gratifying that the audience thoughtfully reflected upon almost one hundred people gave their the importance of terroir and knowingly support to the cause. The Chair is now compared Pinot Noirs. Philip Pettit gave the independent of the bitter financial winds Routledge Lecture in Philosophy, offering blowing around many posts in academe, us a lucid and illuminating account of even in Cambridge. Particular thanks are rival conceptions of liberty, elegantly due to and Jane Heal, who juxtaposing such heavyweights as Hobbes, have worked tirelessly on behalf of the Bertrand Russell Berlin, Rawls, Skinner and Ibsen. We owe appeal, and to CUDO and Cambridge thanks to all these speakers, and to in America, who have ably supported Routledge for their continued support. us. We are planning to announce a However, the great news this year, celebratory event when all the formalities is always needed if enough of them is that thanks to some very generous are complete. are going to be able to pass the torch gifts the Faculty is now on the point Of course, needs continue. At present to another generation. One of Trinity we are encouraging donors to think College’s alumnus benefactors once of supporting graduate students by wrote “I should have as a memorial the endowing bursaries and grants. This is kind thoughts and gratitude of those If you have any comments or urgent, because there is so little public who had been helped by an unknown suggestions, please send them funding for graduate studies in the friend” and we firmly believe that many to the Editor: humanities. The subjects that the readers would like to share that sentiment. Government likes — science, technology, Last year in this column, Alex Oliver Mrs Jenni Lecky-Thompson engineering and medicine—do not talked of the booming demand for places Faculty of Philosophy include literature, history, languages or in philosophy and expressed gratitude philosophy. Thanks to one fine gift this to colleagues, students, and staff for Sidgwick Avenue year we have been able to offer two their role in sustaining our Rolls-Royce David Bayless studentships. And thanks education. I am pleased to say that the Cambridge to one extremely generous anonymous demand continues. I also want to end CB3 9DA gift, we shall be able to continue to help by affirming that with ever-increasing Phone: +44 1223 331889 some of the best and most deserving pressures, the gratitude is ever more email: [email protected] students for another ten years. But more appropriate.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 1 May 2010 requiring that each option in a choice Hobbes, Berlin and Freedom should escape interference, but also for adopting a more radical position. Philip Pettit This is the republican claim that even a robustly unimpeded choice will be unfree if it is subject to the permission or will of any other. Suppose that there is a doorkeeper guarding the two doors, A and B, but that they are each open because the keeper happens to like you. Would you have a free choice in such a case? An argument rather like Berlin’s adaptation argument suggests that you would not. Suppose you want A, not B, but door A is closed because the door-keeper does not like you. Now imagine that you can secure the goodwill of the door-keeper if you toady or fawn or kowtow appropriately. And imagine that you do ingratiate yourself by such means and that door A becomes as open as door B. Does that mean that you now have a free choice between A and B? Surely not. As freedom cannot be achieved just by adaptation, so it cannot plausibly be achieved by ingratiation. Where choice requires the ‘indulgence’ of another, as Richard Price put it in the eighteenth century, it is not properly Philip Pettit free choice. The thought experiment argues for the republican view that a Suppose you are wondering whether interference in the choice between choice is not free if its exercise requires to play a game of tennis and decide in playing and not playing tennis if you the permission and goodwill of another. the end against the idea. Did you make are not impeded in the option you Freedom consists in not being subject a free decision? Yes, you think, of course actually take. to the will of another: not being you did. But now I point out that the gate In his 1958 essay ‘Two Concepts of dominated by another, as by a master. to the tennis court was locked: perhaps Liberty’ Berlin may have gone along It is a nice irony that though Berlin even locked by someone who wanted to with this thought but, to his credit, he took Hobbes to be a forerunner of his make sure you couldn’t play. Are you still explicitly renounced it later, drawing on views, his arguments go in an extreme sure that you made a free decision? a metaphor of open doors. In order to non-Hobbesian direction. Not only does Most of us will respond by enjoy a free choice between certain his open-doors metaphor undermine distinguishing. Yes, you freely made a options, each option must be an open Hobbes’s explicit claim, making choice between the options you thought door, he said. It is not enough that the counterfactual as well as actual you had. But those options weren’t all actual door you push on happens to be interference hostile to freedom. It available and so you did not actually open; the counterfactual door you might also provides support for the view that have a free choice between playing have pushed on must have been open the freedom of a choice requires full and not playing tennis. too. You must not be exposed either to independence from the will of another, This very example was discussed in actual or to counterfactual interference. thereby sustaining the very ancient, an exchange between Thomas Hobbes Berlin made an interesting case for this republican ‘wisdom’ that Hobbes took and Bishop Bramhall in the seventeenth position. Suppose you are faced with two to be too ‘dearly bought’. century. Hobbes’s extraordinary view options or doors, A and B, and only A is was that you really have a free choice if open. If you can adapt your preferences you are not interfered with in the option so as to want A, not B, then on the view Philip Pettit is the Laurance S. you actually choose. And so he says, under question you will have ensured presumably with ‘real’ tennis in mind, that you have a free choice. But this is Rockefeller Professor of Politics that ‘it is no impediment...that the door absurd. You cannot make yourself free; and Human Values at Princeton is shut’ if you have not ‘a will to play’. you cannot ensure the freedom of University. In October 2009 he The Hobbesian way of thinking about a choice, just by adapting your gave the fourth Routledge Lecture free choice may continue in the theme, preferences appropriately. in Philosophy on the uses of Berlin’s sounded with particular brio by Isaiah I like Berlin’s metaphor and I like this open-doors metaphor. He also gave Berlin, that to be free in a choice is not to argument. One attractive feature is that the Seeley Lectures on a republican suffer interference there. On at least one the metaphor has resources not actually conception of democracy on reading of this idea you do not suffer exploited by Berlin. It argues not just for 26–30 April 2010.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 2 May 2010 extent are human activities properly What is Legal Philosophy? subject to legal regulation? Who – legislatures or courts – should have Matthew H. Kramer the final say in determining whether people hold fundamental legal rights to be treated in certain ways? Is there any comprehensively applicable Although I teach in the Law Faculty at and, to a lesser extent, with most moral obligation to comply with legal Cambridge, most of my degrees and other domains of philosophy – but requirements? What is the appropriate all of my lecturing, supervisions and it addresses a number of distinctive general basis for the imposition of research are philosophical. Two of my topics and concerns. punishments? When can adjudicators areas of specialization, moral philosophy Very roughly, the field can be and administrators legitimately deviate and political philosophy are well covered divided into two main components: the from the requirements of procedural by the Philosophy Faculty; but my third conceptual or theoretical-explanatory justice in order to promote the area of specialization, legal philosophy, side, and the normative or prescriptive attainment of substantive justice? has largely been left to the Law Faculty side. Although there is a considerable Though some of these questions (so far as I am aware, Ross Harrison is amount of interweaving between those can be construed as jurisdiction-specific the only member of the Philosophy two categories, they can usefully be inquiries, philosophers construe them Faculty in recent decades who has separated for heuristic purposes. in abstraction from any particular worked on topics in legal philosophy). When legal philosophers pursue a jurisdiction (even if the philosophers In this respect, Cambridge is similar conceptual or theoretical-explanatory ultimately conclude that the answers to most other British and American enquiry, they seek to explicate the nature to several of these questions can universities. Though there are a few of some major entity or property that legitimately vary to some degree exceptions, most universities in the is involved in the operations of legal across jurisdictions). The question English-speaking world consign the systems. Perhaps the most famous about punishment illustrates the philosophy of law predominantly to such enquiry concerns the nature of complexities of the normative matters law faculties. law itself. Legal positivists (including me) that are pondered by legal philosophers. Ironically, the situation just recounted have long insisted on the separability of I have space to mention only the three is due not least to the similarities law and morality. That is, they maintain most commonly propounded positions. between law and philosophy. Like that there are no significant necessary Some philosophers take the view that philosophy, law as an academic connections between the legal domain a punishment is morally justified insofar discipline is highly self-reflective and the moral domain – though there as it deters future criminal activity more and concerned with its own history. are typically any number of contingent effectively than would any less severe In addition, it sets a premium on connections between those domains. sanction. Other philosophers contend rigorously articulated argumentation In opposition to legal positivists are that punishments are morally justified and on the elaboration of subtle natural-law philosophers of many insofar as they are deserved, or insofar distinctions. Moreover, major stripes, who contend that law and as they are necessary, to reaffirm the philosophical issues arise in many morality are necessarily linked in rights and dignity of victims. Still areas of the law. For example, the important ways. Debates between others maintain that punishments are law of evidence involves many of the positivists and natural-law thinkers have morally justified insofar as they express problems with which epistemologists loomed large in the philosophy of law a community’s revulsion toward various grapple, and quite a few of the for centuries, partly because the specific modes of misconduct. distinctions drawn in that area of law foci of those debates are multifarious. Several additional positions and are parallel to those drawn in the (The precise tenor of any claim about combinations of positions have been epistemological literature (although the relationship between law and championed over the years, but the admittedly there are also some salient morality depends upon the relevant preceding paragraph suffices to convey differences). It is not surprising then, contrast class for the moral realm: a sense of the multi-facetedness of that some distinguished epistemologists morality vs. immorality, morality vs. the normative topics that are the foci such as Larry Laudan and Susan Haack prudence, morality vs. descriptive in many of the quarrels among legal have produced important work on factuality). philosophers. To the extent that any general topics in the law of evidence. Countless further conceptual or progress is made in tackling those Because of these affinities between theoretical-explanatory enquiries in topics, it occurs through wide-ranging law and philosophy, the location of legal philosophy pertain to other disputation. Given that most legal legal philosophy in law faculties is quite major entities or properties that are philosophers have been trained both sensible. Given that both the methods operative in legal systems: rights, as philosophers and as lawyers, the of reasoning and the substantive issues liberties, authority, duties, and so numerousness and persistence of the in the philosophy of law are far from forth. However, we should move disagreements among them are amply unfamiliar to jurists, the major British on to the normative or prescriptive predictable! and American law faculties are natural matters that engross legal philosophers. homes for the Jurisprudence courses These matters belong to the domain that are offered under their auspices. of political philosophy, but, because Nonetheless, the philosophy of law they centrally involve legal institutions, Matthew Kramer is Professor of Legal is indeed a branch of philosophy. It they are frequently addressed by legal & Political Philosophy, and a Fellow overlaps substantially with political philosophers as well. Among the issues of Churchill College. philosophy and moral philosophy – of this sort are the following: To what

Philosophy at Cambridge page 3 May 2010 judged was something independent A Conversation with Tim Crane of your mind and this was a central part of their rejection of idealism. I Interviewed by Simon Blackburn suppose I’m so interested in the idea of intentionality because I see it everywhere in philosophy.

SB: Do you think that the study of consciousness especially is undergoing changes, with its fMRI scanners and so on, which tell us about the way the brain works? Do you think this is going to affect your own work or the direction of the subject? TC: I definitely see this as something that would affect my own work and it already has affected the subject in lots of ways. I think one of the roles for philosophy here is to pin down exactly what it is that we‘re talking about when we talk about ‘consciousness’. There are so many things that we bring under the heading of consciousness and it’s a serious question whether they have anything interesting in common. We talk about thoughts being conscious we talk about sensations being conscious, and about conscious emotions, moods and reasoning, Tim Crane and Simon Blackburn but are these in any way the same phenomenon? If they are, it doesn’t Tim Crane joined the Faculty in and the relationship between seem that what’s going to explain these October 2009 as the Knightbridge intentionality and consciousness, phenomena or bring them together Professor of Philosophy. He previously which has taken me towards the is one simple quality. There’s no simple taught at UCL where he was also Head theory of consciousness, but also quality common between thought of Department. towards Phenomenology with a and conscious thought and sensation. capital P, as it were, especially towards So I think that’s what philosophy SB: Let’s start by asking what your Husserl and some of his ideas. needs to work on. And that is definitely connection with Cambridge has been So one thing I’m working on at the illuminated I think, by what’s going on over the years? moment is a book on thinking about in neuroscience on understanding the TC: My connection with Cambridge goes the non-existent. This is incredibly actual functional architecture of the back to when I was a graduate student important for the theory of intentionality brain. Let alone more spectacular here in the 80s. And then I worked in because on the face of it, it looks as if discoveries like the recent discovery by London for 20 years, but I always kept in the general phenomenon of thinking neuroscientists in Cambridge about the touch with the Faculty here and it’s very about something ought to be a relation presence of consciousness in patients exciting to be back and working here between the thinking mind and the in a persistent vegetative state, which is as professor. thing thought about, but if relations an extraordinary discovery which no only hold between existing things, philosopher should ignore. SB: How about your own research then how is it possible to think about interests: Where do they centre? something that doesn’t exist? SB: No you can’t go on being a simple- TC: Well most of my work so far has minded behaviourist if consciousness been in the . At SB: Yes the old trouble of non- is apparently there in people whose the moment I’ve been working on existence. That is in a sense, a capacity for behaviour has vanished. the idea of intentionality, the mind’s very Cambridge topic, because it What about your interests in other representation of the world, or the obsessed Russell and I suppose areas of philosophy? mind’s direction upon its objects. I’ve it was part of the motivation for TC: My interests have started to written about different aspects of this the theory of descriptions. move in slightly different directions. phenomenon of intentionality. In my first TC: That’s right I think, and also I One is my interest in animal cognition book, I wrote about the intentionality of suppose Russell and Moore didn’t and the philosophical questions that mind, and reductive accounts of it, talk about their ideas in terms of that raises. That’s something I find particularly accounts in terms of intentionality – they didn’t use those very exciting at the moment and there’s computation and causal processes. categories, but the fundamental very interesting research going on in I’ve become more interested as the starting point of their philosophy psychology on animal thought and years have gone on in phenomenology was the idea of judgement. What you communication. Another side of my

Philosophy at Cambridge page 4 May 2010 interests is of perhaps some years ago, I started thinking about a more Aristotelian form. A lot of his idea of substance as something Future Events metaphysics is dominated by a simple which is a fundamental unity, Alumni Weekend 2010 certain kind of unbridled speculation and there seemed something deeply Saturday 25th September at the moment as if you can just say right about this. Of course it’s a very Dr Fraser MacBride will deliver anything as long as no one’s ever said unusual view of reality and no one a talk on ‘The Dark Matter of it before and it’s vaguely coherent. thinks that Leibniz’s view could be true, Cambridge Philosophy’. Please Whereas I think that if there is such a but nonetheless in thinking about it see the Alumni Weekend website thing as metaphysics at all, it has to be you face questions about the sorts of (www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/weekend) related to other things we know from things that might be true – and you for further details. science and other sources, and to things avoid errors and you get inspiration Festival of Ideas 2010 that make sense. It’s for that reason that from engaging with the great thinkers ‘Fiction, Emotion, and Imagination’ I’m interested in the Aristotelian idea of the past. We also learn about why Friday 29th October 2010 of substance as a kind of fundamental we have the problems that we do. So Dr Cain Todd from Lancaster unity in things, and I would like to I’m all for reading the great thinkers University will give a talk on emotional develop that further and think about of the past – and even the less great response to fictional artworks. questions of persistence in identity thinkers! over time in relation to these more Inaugural Lecture: ‘What is old fashioned categories. SB: Absolutely. Is there anything else Distinctive about Human you would like to talk about? Thought?’ Wednesday 1st December 2010 SB: Cambridge, certainly in my young TC: I’d just like to say how great it is Professor Tim Crane will give his day, was never a historically orientated to be back in Cambridge and what a inaugural lecture as Knightbridge department. Jonathan Bennett was wonderful academic, intellectual and Professor. thought to be slightly eccentric for pedagogical environment it is. It’s a great being so keen on the history of privilege to be here and I look forward Routledge Lecture in Philosophy philosophy and yet it’s surprising how to being here for many years. Tuesday 15th March 2011 again and again it turns out that the Professor Tim Scanlon from Harvard contemporary problems are somehow University will give a lecture entitled ‘Value in Morality and Politics’. echoing the history of the subject. A podcast of the full conversation TC: That’s true. I was not originally Further details about these lectures will is available at www.phil.cam.ac.uk. interested in the question of substance, be available on the Faculty website. but when I had to teach Leibniz at UCL

Philosophy at Cambridge page 5 May 2010 People

“Throughout the second half of the crossing the t’s), Smiley has done the twentieth century Timothy Smiley best he can to bring out the best in gave lectures on logic at Cambridge all around him. For five decades he and University. It is not an exaggeration his wife Benita have opened their home to say that the lectures are a life-time to students who in a weary moment, memory for many who heard them. or a moment of insecurity, could use A remarkably large number of those a home-cooked meal and a laugh. A students decided to pursue philosophy small sample of those who are grateful as a profession and have gone on to have put together this volume on the distinguished careers of their own: when many ways that good arguments asked, they cite Smiley’s lectures as an actually work”. inspiration. … Smiley has displayed So says the Preface to Professor unplumbable generosity towards Smiley’s Festschrift, The Force of students and colleagues. Whether he Argument (Routledge, 2010), which is pointing a student towards a fruitful celebrated his groundbreaking area of research, or helping him see that achievements in logic. Readers will his current conceptualization is not yet know many of the contributors: quite right; whether he is spurring on a Jonathan Lear and Alex Oliver, who colleague with a unique blend of serious also co-edited the volume, and Kwame challenge, honest encouragement and Anthony Appiah, Tom Baldwin, Jim Professor Timothy Smiley at the presentation teasing; whether he is meticulously Cargile, James Doyle, Ian Hacking, Lloyd of his Festschrift in Clare College, 15 January correcting draft after draft of a student’s Humberstone, Rosanna Keefe, Michael 2010. Photo: Geoff Durrant. paper (literally dotting the i’s and Potter, Graham Priest and Neil Tennant.

Awards and Honours Dr Clare Chambers was awarded a Special Lectures Medieval philosophy scholar Dr CRASSH Early Career Research Fellowship A large audience came to hear John Marenbon (Trinity College, for Easter term 2010. alumnus Professor Roger Scruton Cambridge) was elected a Fellow of Dr Lubomira Radoilska was awarded (Jesus College 1962–5) give a lively talk the British Academy. a six month Dissemination Grant by the on ‘Music, Meaning and Morality’ at Dr Hallvard Lillehammer has Wellcome Trust for her current research last year’s alumni weekend. Professor won a Pilkington Teaching Prize in on conceptions of autonomy and Scruton argued for the moral significance recognition of his excellence in equality in public health. of music, its place in our culture, and teaching at the University. Dr Mark Sprevak, was awarded a two the need for taste and discrimination Professor Onora O’Neill received an year Leverhulme Early Career Research in listening to it. A podcast and slides honorary degree from the University Fellowship. of the lecture are available from the of York. Tom Simpson was awarded a three Faculty website. year sponsorship from Microsoft Arrivals Research Ltd for a postgraduate Last October Professor Simon Dr Richard Woodward from the research studentship. Blackburn gave the Presidential University of Leeds joined the Faculty Address to the Aristotelian Society. as temporary lecturer in October 2009, Appointments while Dr Arif Ahmed is on research leave. An impressive number of our graduate On 2nd March 2010 Baroness Onora Dr Niklas Moller (from Sweden) began students and Research Fellows have O’Neill delivered the prestigious Rede a two year EC Marie Curie Intra-European recently secured jobs in academia. Lecture for 2009–10 on The Two Cultures Research Fellowship in July 2009, working Among them, Ben Colburn has been Fifty Years On. on the Philosophy of Risk with Simon appointed to a lectureship at Glasgow Blackburn. University. Tom Stern and Jenny Bryan Student Prizes have been appointed to lectureships The Matthew Buncombe prize for Research Awards at UCL, Charlotte Werndl at the London best overall performance in the Dr Michael Potter and Dr Peter School of Economics, Mark Sprevak at MPhil degree was awarded to Smith were each awarded research Edinburgh and Jules Holroyd at Cardiff. Robert Trueman (Fitzwilliam). leave from the AHRC for a three month Sacha Golob was awarded a Junior The Craig Taylor prize for best period for 1st Oct 2009 and 1st April Research Fellowship at Peterhouse, performance in Part IB was shared 2010 respectively. Cambridge; Laura Biron at Queen’s, between Zoe Johnson King Dr Arif Ahmed was awarded a Research Cambridge; and Tim Button at St (Fitzwilliam) and Benjamin Gregory Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for John’s, Cambridge. (St John’s). The Part II prize went the 2009–10 academic year. to Matthew Hasler (Girton).

Philosophy at Cambridge page 6 May 2010 Events

Festival of Ideas 2009 The Philosophy of Wine – From Science to Subjectivity Alexis J. Papazoglou, PhD student

Pre-empting, perhaps, the audience’s scepticism, Professor Barry Smith (Institute of Philosophy) assured us that one can enjoy one’s passion for wine while profiting philosophically “at least until the second bottle”. What prompted Smith’s philosophical interest in wine was a paradox – wine critics claim that taste is subjective, yet the industry of wine-making seems to rely on this not being so. On the one hand, tasting wine involves a subjective experience; one cannot know how the wine tastes just by Visitors enjoyed wine and philosophy at the Festival of Ideas analysing its chemical composition. Novices and experts also widely disagree about what they can taste in Autonomy and Mental Health Conference a wine. On the other hand, producing Lubomira Radoilska, Research Fellow wine involves a number of choices (grape variety, location, harvesting Autonomy is the focus of several major Invited speakers included: Derek time, aging process etc.) all with the philosophical inquiries. One of these Bolton (KCL & Maudsley Trust), aim of producing a particular result. aims to establish the defining features Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham), Bill It is the accuracy with which wine of autonomous motivational states, Fulford (Oxford & Warwick), Jules producers can make predictions such as proper formation and reflective Holroyd (Cardiff), Agnieszka Jawoska about what people will taste in the endorsement. It relates autonomy to the (California Riverside), Jennifer Radden wine that makes Smith believe that concepts of rational agency and freedom (Massachussets), Jens Timmermann taste is objective. The possibility of a of will. Another approach explores the (St. Andrews), and Elizabeth Fistein, wine’s taste being a secondary quality, question of whether autonomous Jane Heal, Hallvard Lillehammer, and however, was not considered despite choices ought to accord with particular Lubomira Radoilska (Cambridge). it being seemingly plausible. values, e.g. self-respect. It identifies The conference was very well attended, On the disagreement between covert forms of oppression and with participants from the USA, Japan, experts and novices, Smith argued elaborates on corrective initiatives. South Africa, and many European that this is due to the evaluative A third inquiry concentrates on the countries. The constructive spirit of the nature of taste. We form judgements links between responsiveness to moral event and the diverse background of the about whether we like a taste, as well reasons and effective control over one’s participants contributed to fruitful and as about what the taste is like. Experts life. It looks at fully developed agency stimulating discussions which not only learn to focus their attention on the and clarifies its relationship to moral broadened our respective intellectual latter, novices focus on the former. responsibility. Furthermore, autonomy horizons, but equally strengthened the Taste then, for Smith, is subjective is a fundamental topic in medical ethics. conceptual and methodological grounds with regard to its evaluative aspects, Yet its links to two related key concepts, of our work. but not with regard to its descriptive decisional capacity and mental disorder I would like to thank the conference aspects. Apart from solving the initial are rarely given full consideration. speakers, chairpersons, and delegates paradox, Smith claimed that thinking A conference on “Autonomy and whose valuable contributions were about wine-tasting can have Mental Health” (7–8 January 2010, instrumental to the success of this philosophical value, for it brings out University of Cambridge) provided event. I would also like to acknowledge the multimodal nature of the object a forum for constructive dialogue the financial and administrative support of taste: namely smell, touch and taste between philosophers, psychiatrists, I received from the Wellcome Trust are all involved in judging a flavour. lawyers, and practitioners whose work and CRASSH. This makes it an interesting case-study relates to these intricate concepts. The The conference is part of an ongoing for philosophers of perception who questions we addressed included: Does collaborative project at the Faculty of tend to focus on one sense at a the notion of capacity necessarily involve Philosophy. Further information and time, such as vision. By the end, the evaluation? How does it relate to the related resources are available at: audience seemed convinced that, as notion of autonomy? What are the www.phil.cam.ac.uk/news_events/ Voltaire put it, “taste invites reflection”. defining features of mental disorder? autonomy_mental_health.html.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 7 May 2010 but you will not find it so defined in The Meaning of Harpic any dictionary. Once a brand name has been Winston Fletcher launched the advertiser will go to strenuous efforts to control its meaning, to ensure it continues to mean what he wants it to mean. This too is unique Persil and Palmolive. Others, like to brands. Nobody controls the Birds Eye, Gillette and Mars are the meanings of other kinds of word, personal names of the originators of nor would they even try. This is one the products. Yes, there was indeed a reason etymologists and lexicographers Clarence Birdseye, a King Gillette, and have little interest in brand names. If a Forrest Mars. They branded their we want to know what a brand name products with their names in much means we must ask the public through the same way as a cowboy brands his market research, rather than the cattle, but for the opposite reason. lexicographers. No lexicographer The cowboy brands his cattle to deter would seek to establish the meaning rustlers. In contrast, brand owners want, of a word via market research. as it were, to encourage rustlers. Brand Most astonishing of all, once a owners want people to recognise their brand name has been launched into brands instantly, so they can easily the public domain it acquires value. choose them, and then choose them Brand names are absolutely the only again and again – confident they will words worth loads of lolly. They can always get the same quality and style be, and are, bought and sold. Have you of product for their money. Only the ever tried to sell a word? Try selling daftest business people put their brand ‘obfuscation’, or ‘prestidigitation’, or Winston Fletcher names on shoddy goods, as branding ‘bottoms’. No way. Nobody will buy helps customers recognise inferior ‘prestidigitation’ from you. Anyway it’s On leaving Cambridge, after dithering products as easily as it helps them not yours to sell. On the other hand, if about a bit – aspiring to be both an recognise good ones. you owned ‘Heineken’, ‘Harrods’, ‘Hovis’ exalted novelist and the next prime Brand names are a curious breed or even ‘Harpic’, you’d be sitting on minister but five, I joined the humble of noun, placed somewhere between a fortune. world of advertising. Many will find common nouns and proper nouns. Would I have understood the the word ‘humble’ conjoined with A common noun, say ‘soap’, identifies peculiarities of brand names – and ‘advertising’ oxymoronic, but in my a multiplicity of roughly similar things. there are many more – without studying experience advertising folk are much A proper noun, or name, say ‘Ludwig philosophy? Almost certainly not. Has more humble than novelists or Wittgenstein’, identifies a specific, this esoteric knowledge made me a politicians. With good reason you singular entity. Yet ‘Palmolive’ is pile of money? Almost certainly not. may say. absolutely specific – no other soaps I had read philosophy (then Moral are Palmolive, but it identifies a Sciences) but had no wish to become multiplicity of soap bars. A proper Winston Fletcher CBE, read Moral a philosopher. Doubtless the Philosophy noun refers to something unique; a Sciences at St John’s (1955–58). Faculty felt the same way about me. common noun refers to innumerable His appointments have included Nor, on the other hand, did I wish to similar things; a brand name refers Chairman of the Advertising squander all my hard won philosophical to innumerable things which are Association and President of learning. But I faced a grim reality. uniquely similar. the Institute of Practitioners Advertising is not a business where I The late John Wisdom showed that in Advertising. His most recent would be likely to find epistemology nouns are predictive. If I say “Here is a publication is Powers of Persuasion immensely useful. bar of soap” you’ll know roughly what (Oxford University Press, 2008) How wrong I was! I soon learned to expect. But brand names are more that advertising provides its practitioners than predictive: they are promissory. with a philosophically-based privilege They promise the purchaser the unknown to others. Advertising people particular experiences their meanings are blessed with the power to coin new encompass. And woe betide the brand words which swiftly pass into everyday name which doesn’t deliver what is usage: brand names. Poets, writers and expected of it. It will soon perish. philosophers seldom invent new words. In addition to invented names Scientists do, but nobody uses their and manufacturers’ names, there is words except other scientists. When a third category of brand names: did you last hear people gossiping Vanish, Fairy, Old Spice et al. These about D’Alembert’s Principle at a were existing words with well- cocktail party? Whereas people use established meanings before brand names all the time. opportunistic marketing men The Faculty gratefully acknowledges Not all brand names are invented, hijacked them. So that nowadays support for the newsletter from Polity Press but many are. Names like Panasonic, ‘Vanish’ means a washing product, and Cambridge University Press

Philosophy at Cambridge page 8 May 2010