Callard's Open Socrates- cancel Tolstoy

 Why ask why? The answer is that the answer to some 'why' questions involves a 'Structural Causal Model'. If we possess such a thing, we can start tinkering with parameters to alter outcomes for the better. That is useful. But asking the 'why' question wasn't itself useful. What was useful was the the SCM and the desire to use it to make things better. 

This is not to say doing or talking useless shite can't be a nice enough way to pass the time. So long as such activities attract only useless shitheads, no great harm is done if they burgeon. What is wrong is to subsidize or otherwise celebrate this type of stupidity.

Consider Agnes Callard's new book 'Open Socrates'. If you spend your own time and money on purchasing and perusing it, it is only your own time and money you have wasted. On the other hand, if the teaching of that shite is subsidized by the tax-payer then there is a negative 'externality'- i.e. a cost received outside the market. That is why Socioproctology must point the finger at assholes who pretend Callard aint a shithead. 

Callard asks why we are afraid to ask stupid or useless questions. The answer is that we aren't afraid, we just have better things to do. Now it is certainly true that a crazy person may ask stupid or useless questions. Indeed, they may become obsessed with the question 'why am I a cat with the body of a hippopotamus?- and feel that life has become empty and meaningless because no one can supply a satisfactory answer to this pressing question. 

True, a literary genius, like Tolstoy, or a mathematical genius, like Godel, might suffer a mental illness and yet produce very crazy, yet thought provoking, work. But, academic philosophy no longer attracts smart people. Even if Callard is as crazy as a bedbug, she can't say anything interesting. She is too ignorant and too stupid. Moreover, readers nowadays can 'ask Alexa' or otherwise very quickly check factual claims. 

Consider the following

Google 'Tolstoy' and you find exactly what you expect. The guy suffered from depression. Thankfully, learning of the American Temperance Movement, he gave up alcohol which meant that, ceteris paribus, his condition was bound to improve. Giving up meat and whoring and doing a bit of manual labour meant he would live to a great age. Still, the fact is, as a Russian writer living at a time of great socio-political change, he either had to find new material- society novels were passe, Karenina was a damp squid compared to Doestoevsky's 'Demons'- or suffer a decline in esteem. Tolstoy chose so well that Lenin credited him with motivating the 1905 uprising. Thus Stalin pampered Tolstoy's pal, Vladimir Chertkov, while sentencing a lot of Old Bolsheviks to death. 

What Callard has written is foolish. Tolstoy was recognised as a great writer but he was being eclipsed and could easily be made as much a butt of ridicule as Doestoevsky had made of Turgenev a few years earlier. The most demonic character in 'Demons' is Kirillov the 'Man-God' who feels obliged to kill himself to free Man of his fear of Death and thus is content to provide a scape-goat for some squalid secret society of a murderous and nihilistic type. I suppose, while writing Karenina and realizing that the affairs and intrigues of the aristocracy were as boring as shit, Tolstoy invests in the even more deeply boring figure of Levin as his alter ego. But Levin was a cul de sac. He should either just get a Zossima type starets as a spiritual adviser or enlist in the Bulgarian Army and get shot. It is no wonder that Tolstoy- who drank a fair amount at that time- wanted to kill himself. He slowly worked his way back to productivity and, with the novella 'death of Ivan Ilyich,' showed he could deal with the trials and tribulations of a more middle class character. Still, it was Doestoevsky's death which gave him his second lease of literary life. Admittedly he had to overplay the peasant-sage shtick. But this is because he didn't have the sense of humour of those more humbly born. His view of society was bound to be stilted rather than genuinely satirical. 

 More generally, it is precisely the successful artist who feels the greatest anxiety. Those who praise him today may condemn his next book. Worse, they might lampoon him. The young would smirk knowingly at the mention of his name. The temptation is great to blow your brains out before your body runs to fat and your brain fills with shit. 

There was a continuity between the aristocrat Pushkin and the aristocrat Tolstoy. But the daemonic Gogol's successor, the even more daemonic, Doestoevsky, was smarter, funnier and more profound. Tolstoy needed to reinvent himself. The most boring character in Anna Karenina, nevertheless, could open a door out of the grand St. Petersburg salon and towards the humble peckha of the moujhik. 

The other point has to do with the manner in which, after Darwin's dangerous idea had gained currency, all writers, to a greater or lesser extent, posed or responded to existential questions. In Russia, there was a special urgency to the 'what is to be done?' question. Since there were no good answers, the 'why do anything? What is the fucking point?' question gained salience. Tolstoy knew that his literary reputation could disappear overnight. He knew that his peasants might slaughter him and his family. If God himself had been slain and Man was but a hairless monkey, what, indeed, was to be done? Sell up and become a citizen of Switzerland? Turgenev had many friends in France and Germany and England. He was at home in the West. Tolstoy would have always felt an exile. Still, the question remained, on what terms was he to stay on in Russia? Classical Liberalism was a fad whose day had passed. Narodnik nonsense was vulgar and might involve the country in costly and pointless wars in the Balkans. Socialism required a much larger industrial base. Given the options available, Tolstoy's choice of Pacificism wasn't silly. After all, the Russian army was in fact much weaker than appeared to be the case. 

Tolstoy's prescription for those who suffer suicidal ideation is sensible enough. Give up booze. Alcohol is a mental depressant. Keep yourself busy. Take things one day at a time. Callard writes- 

There is no 'Pandora's box' but there is such a thing as 'spiralling'. Tolstoy suffered a specific illness and said 'don't spiral'. Socrates did not suffer that illness. Had he met a depressed guy who kept trying to top himself, Socrates would have given him the same advise as Tolstoy. 

Both Socrates and Tolstoy took risks by appearing 'impious' (asebia). Socrates was put to death. Tolstoy might have been exiled. He was certainly under police surveillance at certain times. Both were patriots. But the risks they ran weren't out of proportion to the benefit they sought to secure for their countrymen. 

Still, the truth about Socrates was that he was 'ultracrepidarian'. He talked about things in which he had no expertise. He would have been acquitted by the Court if he had been able to say 'I am a Sophist. I charge high fees. I could rattle off the names of my students. The vast majority are successful and enjoy great public esteem. True, one or two, turned out to be bad apples. But why blame me rather than their wrestling coach or riding instructor? I do a job, just as they do a job. How are we supposed to predict what our student will do with the skills we are paid to impart to them?' Had Plato been indicted, he could have pointed at his Academy. Wealthy students from other cities came to study there. This was good for Athens. 

Tolstoy had a vocation- writing- for which he was paid quite well. Socrates may have had a vocation but he didn't get paid. He talked and he talked and eventually talked himself into a death sentence. He had charm. He had eloquence. He may have been regarded as a 'pharmakos' or scape-goat sacrificed so some spiritual benefit be gained by the Polis. But, there was no 'strategy' to this. We feel Socrates was possessed of a particular 'genius' or 'daemon'. He had no plan of his own. Still, the fellow was, if not a gentleman, then a diamond in the rough. This is not something one might appreciate in adolescence, but, at my age, Socrates is a welcome enough guest at my solitary symposia. 

Callard does not understand that Socrates never suffered from depression. He was never suicidal. He was part of a particular coterie in Periclean Athens which sought to use an amorous and charming type of discourse to create affectionate bonds to hold together a coalition. Thus an Athenian might say 'I disagree with Pericles on issues of fiscal policy and international diplomacy. But, I suppose you could say, we share a certain philosophy.'  If Socrates was the one who had persuaded him of this, his genius for conversation would be judged to have had political utility. Sadly, Athenian politics was a risky business. But then, life itself was risky. There might be a slave insurrection or a sudden invasion. Many a patrician might end his days as a galley slave. 

Socrates saw that many people in Athens- even Simon the shoe-maker- were talking about deep ontological and metaphysical questions. He talked to them as he talked to the professional Sophists who taught rhetoric and helped their clients win court cases. But he didn't 'dive headlong' into anything. He wrote nothing his acolytes thought worth preserving. When debating with a superior mind- Parmenides accompanied by Zeno- he gets trounced and takes his defeat in good part. It is his amateur status which secures him the station of a  a gentleman, though he was neither well-born, nor rich, nor had any great accomplishment to his credit. Yet, he inspired others- Aristophanes ridicules him, Plato and Xenophon praise him to the skies. Yet, in the end, he is a bit of a Schlemiel, and that endears him to us. 

Callard does not understand that anybody at all can be a mimetic target. There were plenty of Tolstoyans just as there were many imitators of Socrates and Diogenes and so forth. 

Callard draws attention to a stupid mistake Socrates made when presenting his defence. He tells the story of the Delphic oracle who answered no to the question 'is there any man wiser than Socrates'. It is fucking obvious that what Socrates should say next is 'no man is wiser than me. No man is wiser than any of you. But when you jointly make a decision, then there is a greater wisdom than that possessed by any mortal. But with great wisdom comes great mercy. I call myself a fool. Why else would I now stand before you accused of the dreadful crime of asebia? Instruct me and make such use of me as benefits our beloved Polis.' 

The problem with Periclean Democracy was that collective action problems were solved in an individualistic manner. There's a good reason, Rome, not Greece, provides the basis of Civil Law whereas Math and Physics and Philosophy remained a Greek monopoly. Could the Ecclesia have been repurposed- e.g. by delegating specialist matters to expert committees or by training up a class of 'logothete' civil servants- such that collective action problems could be better solved by reason of the application of more minds in line with the Condorcet Jury theorem? Perhaps. But the very individualism which made Athens so creative militated against it evolving superior organs of Government. 

Callard draws attention to Socrates's fundamental flaw- he wanted to talk only to people like himself as he makes clear to Gorgias. Since Gorgias is happy to meet Socrates on a field where he has professional  expertise, Gorgias agrees. 

The problem here is that plenty of propositions are neither true nor false. They are too vague to admit of verification or refutation. However, if you talk to people who are unlike you, it is likely that they have knowledge you don't have and thus there can be an epistemic Pareto improvement. Still, Socrates gives a good enough definition of philosophy as dealing only with 'open questions' such that as good an argument can be made for or against a proposition. The problem here is that empirical disciplines 'close' questions which philosophers, in their ignorance, continue to treat as open.

Socrates's point was that nobody could show he was wrong because he confined himself to topics where the thing was impossible. But this is also true of people who talk only about their cat or, in my case, my neighbour's cat. Sadly, it starved to death after its owner died. I told the police there was a cat in the flat and that it was probably hiding. I assumed they had removed it. They hadn't. Sad.  

We don't care if we are refuted if we talk nonsense. What is important is that we got somebody to listen to us. There's a reason we should display anger at being refuted. If we didn't, people might think we made a habit of talking just for the sake of talking. 

Of course, there is a certain pleasure in conviviality. If we know we are talking nonsense, we can talk and talk without risk of falling out with each other for any reason that isn't nonsense. Thus cat people may pretend to be interested in stories about each other's cats and religious people may pretend to be interested in stories about how Jesus Christ appeared to me in the shape of a tortilla and so forth.

I suppose the space around a soldier becomes peopled by soldiers or those who study military tactics. The space around a politician gets peopled by politicians or those interested in politics. But the space around Socrates wasn't peopled by Socrateses. Athenians were highly individualistic. That's why we know so many of their names.

On the other hand, there is a space near you which is dedicated to overcoming our fear of a particular question- viz. what happens to us after death. It is peopled by Christians. Billions of people seek to live as Jesus did, or the Buddha did, or Prophet Muhammad did. There are no Socratians. Guys who gas on about him are ill paid pedagogues. Socrates himself, in the Lysis, suggested that his method would be of use to pederasts. Talk that type of bollocks to beardless youths and they will clamour to be sodomized by you. Sadly, Socrates was mistaken. Pederasts had to continue to pretend to lurve or take a genuine interest in those they wished to bugger. Thankfully, beating and incarceration discourages paedophilia just as killing Socrates curbed a potential nuisance. On the other hand, crucifying Christ was a mistake. The son of a Carpenter took the place of Divine Emperors. 

Callard claims to understand decision theory but she does not know economics which descends directly from empirical 'Political Arithmetic' and the practical knowledge gleaned by merchants, farmers and industrialists. In its mathematical form, it concerns itself with constrained optimization. It has never had anything to do with 'ethics'. The name given to what is optimized is Utility or Ophelimity. Empirically, this means 'revealed preference'- i.e. whatever it is that people actually choose. However, this is epistemic- i.e. knowledge based- and hence its 'extension' changes as knowledge changes. In this sense, like 'Beauty' or 'the Good' it is unknowable and thus has no representation in set theory. 

Economists don't rate Bentham or Mill. Sidgwick kept abreast of Jevons and thus counts as a Marginalist ancestral to Marshall & Pigou. However, this is to ignore the obvious. Utility just means money. Maximize that. In particular, Governments should spend on stuff which will tend to increase the tax base. But this is an idea as old as taxes. Moreover, it is independent of historical circumstances. Thus, the School of Salamanca was more laissez faire than the Mercantilist England of the Tudors and Stuarts. 

Economics is about saving or making money. A few stupid academics may teach both Econ and Philosophy and Morris Dancing. But they don't get paid a lot compared to the economists whom Jeff Bezos hires. 

What is the origin of the economic doctrine of the 'invisible hand'? The answer, known to Christians, is that it is the 'mysterious economy' whereby the Katechon holds the Eschaton at bay. Religion is the common origin of Law, Economics, Politics and Philosophy. 

rejected Aristotelian economics. They were sound on portfolio choice theory. Still, it must be said, it is a particular sort of Religion which best promotes economic progress both for individuals and nations. Sadly, it is like the feather which helps Dumbo the elephant fly. It can't help anyone else to fly and, truth be told, didn't enable Dumbo to fly. Still, it served a purpose for a time. 

Callard asks why, in Ethics, there is a Neo-Aristotelian but no Neo-Socratic ethics? The answer is obvious. Aristotle was a pedagogue and gave a descriptive account of prevailing endoxa. Socrates was a chatterer, not a pedant. Still, he was a decent enough chap. He fought bravely for his country and did not sodomize children. 

In pedagogy, a 'Socratic' approach is one based on dialogue. But, it is quite usual to ask searching questions and seek for contradictions or inconsistencies when deciding upon an important matter. Thus this method can be 'layered' on to anything whatsoever. 

Callard takes a different view.

will never be called into question.

 Callard think this means that one type of free speech, calling into question a particular principle, is disallowed. This is not the case. A principle  applies in 'eligible' situations. If you determine eligibility, you can get any outcome from any principle. 

Chicago University was pushing back against 'cancel culture'. But an avowal of a creed is not Socratic. It is 'mere puffery'. Socrates didn't set up the Academy or the Lyceum. He never said 'my school will be super duper' because he wasn't in that line of business. The plain fact is American Universities were set up to make their students smarter and more productive so that the country as a whole became stronger and more prosperous. At one time, there was some play-acting about encouraging dissent and diversity and other such shite. But that story is over. Being anti-woke is popular. That's the performance smart peeps now want to give. 

Callard either writes carelessly or she is extremely stupid. An announcement is a command, if it is made by a person with authority. Alternatively, it may be a proposed command. It can never be a question. 

Every tool has that audacity. The screw-driver drives in screws. The hammer hammers stuff. The Socratic method may be used in education & training or for a judicial or other decision making process. Socrates wasn't a Christian, but the Church has used the method of elenchos (which means cross-examination or refutation), though, no doubt, it may have originated in the Law Courts or the deliberations of the Elders of the Clan. However, it is not at all essential that there be two or more parties to it. The mathematician takes up a proposition and then looks at the negation of that proposition. Suppose that negation leads to an absurdity, then the mathematician believes he has a 'proof by contradiction'. 

Callard is unaware of this. She writes

Socrates wasn't a stupid chatterbox. Graham Wallas & EM Forster popularized the saying '“How can I know what I think till I see what I say?” which they attributed to a little girl or an elderly lady- i.e. people who lacked dicks and thus who were assumed not to have brains. 

A lawyer or a guy hoping to get a loan may hold an imaginary conversation in his head so as to prepare for possible objections or to so present his arguments that those objections are forestalled. Thinking is not a 'social interaction'. Indeed, the latter requires you to disguise the former to a greater or lesser extent. Thinking can be open-minded even when done in perfect solitude provided no arbitrary restrictions are placed on what is thought. If a person benefits by gaining the truth, thinking is likely to be truth oriented. Inquisitive people are inquisitive. We may imitate them on a particular occasion if we believe we will profit by it. Thus a man who is not inquisitive at all may start asking the sort of questions an inquisitive person does if he wants to find out more about a woman whom he is attracted to. Socrates' motto was 'Know thyself'. He wasn't interested in persuasion nor was he a sceptic. He also wasn't a gnostic. Ignorance does not have evil results. It is not that which obstructs spiritual liberation. It is merely a predicate applicable to some people regarding some things at certain times. 

Socrates didn't say he knew he knew nothing. There were some things he knew (and one thing in particular- love) and other things he didn't know. But with respect to the 'Beautiful' and the 'Good', he was better off than those who thought they had knowledge when such was not the case.

... ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
... I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.

I suppose if you are at leisure to 'inquire into human affairs' by chatting with different people then Socrates provides you with a 'plan for life'. But it is the same plan as that of a Socioproctologist who spends his time pointing the finger at assholes like Callard who claim a knowledge they clearly don't possess. 

Socrates knew that there were good people who denied having any knowledge of how to be good or why they themselves were good. The same was true of the beautiful or those with great talent in particular fields. He himself knew about love and his 'plan of life' was to go around talking to people in a charming manner such that they felt goodwill towards each other. I suppose, there was a political angle to this. Socrates had been a friend of Pericles's mistress who, as a hostess, would seek to bind more closely together the coalition which supported her husband. 

Callard thinks Socrates was saying 'keep talking to other people so as to find out how to live your life better'. This was not the case. He wasn't advocating the setting up of an Agricultural Research Institute to conduct inquiries from which all farmers might benefit. He wasn't even prodding Plato to set up an Academy in which mathematics would be taught. What he knew about was 'love' in the sense of the affectionate ties which can hold a political coalition together while promoting Arts, Sciences & Commerce which benefit the Polis. 

There is no 'ideally knowledgeable life' though there may be immortal Gods who were omniscient. There is no 'substantive ethics of inquiry'. Some do the thing ethically and get nowhere because they are stupid. Others do it unethically and get somewhere because they are less stupid. Socrates understood this just as well as we do. He really wasn't a pompous pedant. Learning stuff may make you better at doing that stuff but it won't make you good. Nor do you need other people to show you where you are wrong- unless you are very stupid and in a class-room full of other very special little snow-flakes. True, some people find 'Group therapy' helpful but a lot of other people don't need anyone to point out to them that maybe they drink too much. It is enough to wake up and find you have shat yourself to realize that you need to cut down on the booze.

Callard does not seem to understand the difference between imperative statements- e.g. 'Do this!'- and principles. Utilitarianism has a principle for ranking different states of the world. It has no prescription regarding how that ranking is to be implemented. As for the categorical imperative, it is still inferior to being good. As Socrates says, categorical thinking is like using the oars of the boat when there is no wind to belly out the sails. 

In every political party or representative Institution there are people who go around chatting to people so as to create an atmosphere where dogmatic differences are put aside or rendered less obstructive of what Rawls called an 'overlapping consensus'. Even if some found Socrates irritating, he acted as a lightning rod. Two people on opposite sides of the fence might agree that the fellow deserved a good kicking. As a result they might look upon each other more kindly. The truth is, Socrates quaffed his cup of hemlock rather than seek to escape because, in this way, political passions might be assuaged. Though it was but a gadfly that the Ecclesia had swatted, perhaps that insignificant death would appease their blood lust. Socrates offered himself as the pharmakos- the Paschal lamb- in the hope that it might heal wounds and unite the Polis. That was admirable. But it can't be a 'plan for life' for any American now. This is because to get sentenced to death you have to do more than just talk. 

Callard puts some very strange views into Socrates's mouth

ignorance and only one solution, which is to learn.

Needless to say this is nonsense. The plague or the Persians killed both the learned and the unlettered. Socrates really wasn't saying 'go to Collidge. Make something of yourself.' This is because there were no fucking Colleges at that time. 

 

Socrates had been a soldier. He knew there were people who knew it was wrong to run away from the enemy but who couldn't stop themselves from doing so. What he questioned was those who claimed to teach an infallible method of cultivating courage. 

Socrates was Greek at a period when the Gods, for their own reasons, might still possess a man to bring about his downfall. As to why harm befalls some at the hands of others- this is the dark mystery of the Fates who may themselves be enchained by forces darker yet. 

Inquiry can be a harmful thing. If you keep inquiring into your lover's activities, she may tell you to fuck off. Your boss may sack you if you keep inquiring into the company's activities. A political party you belong to may be equally discommoded by your inquiries into its sources of funds or track-record of meeting manifesto pledges.

This is common sense- which Socrates did not lack. Callard believes otherwise. 

All of this is nonsense. Excessive inquiry can prevent business or other relationships being carried on as usual with the inquisitive person. Telling him to fuck the fuck off, improves matter for the rest. 

Socrates understood that parrhesia was perfectly compatible with condign punishment. Indeed, it was from the latter that it gained its imperative power. It is one thing to say 'Islam sucks' if you live in Texas. It is another thing entirely to do it in Teheran. 

As for egalitarianism- the plain fact is Socrates thought slavery could be a good thing. Anyway, this side of the grave none are not slaves of the gods. 

What was the secret of Socrates's charm? He wasn't particularly witty or gossipy or even persuasive. But he made his interlocutor feel young again or, if they were on the brink of manhood, it reminded them of an earlier innocence and spirit of play. 

Callard resents precisely this aspect of her hero.

Sadly, philosophy singularly fails in this respect. What it may give you is the ability to bullshit. But this means it is the employer's money which talks. Bullshit walks or takes the subway. 

Of course, it is quite possible to 'overdo Philosophy' and end up earning big bucks constructing LLMs or allocating funds between research programs. But this 'overdoing' took you out of Philosophy into a STEM subject field. At an earlier time, this was not uncommon. Then Philosophy became adversely selective of imbecility. If it is wholly shit, it is because it is taught by shitheads to drooling imbeciles. 

There was a time when only a small percentage of the workforce had a College education. This meant that even those who threw caution to the winds and dropped acid with Prof. Leary or turned to domestic terrorism under the influence of Prof. Marcuse, could rehabilitate themselves and end up as tenured Professors living bougie lives. Now there are too many graduates and PhD holders in shitty subjects. People have to be cautious. 

It is now very dangerous to do so. Pederasty is no longer winked at. You can go to jail for a very long time for indulging in 'Greek love'. Indeed, even having pictures of naked boys on your computer could get you into a lot of trouble. On the other hand, you are welcome to live your life in a Kantian manner producing the definitive account of Leonard Nelson's influence on Grete Hartmann or, if you are a sufficiently advanced Feminist scholar, the other way around. 

An 'untimely question' is one which crops up at the wrong time. Educators and lawyers and politicians, in preparing their arguments are careful to interject statements like 'at this juncture, you may well ask the following question. I won't answer it right away because I first have to give you relevant background information. But, be assured, I will give a very comprehensive answer at such and such time'. 

Callard takes a different view- 

Callard is saying that an 'untimely question' is the question which, with hindsight, we should have asked. But what was 'untimely' was our 'mental preparedness'. We were confused, we were flustered, we were not in tune with the spirit of the Age or the needs of the times. Had, by some magic, the right question popped into our heads, it would have been very timely indeed. 

Callard does not grasp that 'default answers' only appear to actual questions- not questions we didn't ask but which, with hindsight, we ought to have done. Moreover, non-default answers come from the same sources as default answers. It is just that more time is taken inspecting the menu of options. Answers of any type are not 'savage commands'. They are context dependent and only as prescriptive as we choose them to be. We act in a confused manner if we are confused or if it is in our interest to appear so. But a confused person can always act in a manner that is decisive and unambiguous while a person with great mental clarity may appear to act in a haphazard, scatter-brained manner. The TV show 'Elsbeth' features a dotty lawyer who appears to be a brainless chatterbox. Yet, her focus is laser like. 

This is sheer nonsense. Utilitarianism replaces theology and the divine right of Kings with Hutcheson's 'greatest good of the greatest number' which cashes out as maximizing 'transferable utility' i.e. aggregate money income (and hence the tax base). This has nothing to do with the 'savage commands' of the body which are dealt with by legal sanctions and punishments. Kant is not concerned with the group and his doctrine is compatible with autocratic rule. Aristotle is descriptive merely. All dealt with 'kairotic'- i.e. timely- questions though all misfired. 

Callard says the Socratic alternative is to go on inquiring and separating truth from falsehood. But that means more alethic research not armchair philosophy or chit-chat.  She mis-states three intensional paradoxes which arise because Knowledge is an 'intension' whose 'extension' changes as more of it is acquired. Meno's paradox is resolved by saying 'you start of searching for a thing which, over the course of your search, you find out is some other thing entirely'. Columbus did discover America though he may have thought it was India. Moore's paradox is that you can believe a thing while knowing it isn't true. This is because the intension 'belief' includes non-epistemic items in its extension. Thus I believe Mum's cooking is the best in the world though I know no expert on South Indian cuisine would agree. Callard's third paradox is about

Callard does not seem to know that in giving testimony, you act in bad faith if you don't tell the whole truth or if you include false statements. But saying I had this 'working hypothesis' is not to affirm something false. Nor does it impugn the conclusion you reach. To see why consider the following

Defence attorney- Detective Smith, you have said that you got a warrant to search my client's house because you had grounds to believe he kept illegal weapons on his property. Yet, you found no such weapons. What you found was a large quantity of cocaine. Since your premise about my client was false, it follows that your conclusion about him- viz. he is in the drug business- must surely itself be false. How can you justify this arrest?

Detective Smith- In procuring the warrant I presented evidence tying your client to illegal transactions involving the exchange of weapons for drugs. We have been able to establish that one day prior to our executing the warrant, your client exchanged a large quantity of guns for drugs. That is why he had drugs in his possession. He was planning to send the drugs to Canada in exchange for automatic weapons. We did not know that apart from gun running, your client is also a big intermediary in the supply chain for cocaine. Now, we not only know that but can provide admissible evidence which establishes this beyond doubt, peradventure or infirmity of suspicion.'

Clearly, in this case there is a close connection between what the police expected to find and what they actually did find. Suppose, the warrant had been gained for something else- e.g. possession of child pornography. Then there might be some suspicion that the warrant was improperly obtained and any evidence flowing from it was 'fruit of the poisoned tree'. But such is not the case here. 

Suppose the Judge in this case has read Agnes Callard's worthless book and has been persuaded by it. He intervenes as follows-

Judge- 'Detective Smith! I see you have been given the job of asserting truth. Please tell me the name of the other Detective on this case who has been given the job of avoiding falsehood. 

Detective Smith- There is no such detective. All police officers are enjoined to avoid falsehood while giving evidence under oath. Falsehood is avoided by saying what is true and carefully distinguishing suspicions or working hypotheses from facts established by evidence of an admissible kind. 

Judge- But that contradicts what Prof. Callard has written! Can she truly be a complete moron?

Detective Smith- Does she teach Law?

Judge- No. She teaches philosophy.

Detective Smith- I think that answers your question. 

Working together with another person is how we get babies. But, for everything else, one person may achieve a great deal more than they would if they were saddled with Callard as interlocutor. There can certainly be synergy between two smart people. There are gains from specialization and the division of labour. But, equally, there can be negative synergy. As for Philosophy, as Plato realized, it is mathematics, not idle chatter, which can free minds of 'blindness and bias and provinciality'. But, equally empirical research is required to rid Mathematics of particular shibboleths. 

Consider the impact of non-Euclidean geometry on the English mathematical establishment starting from around 1870 with Clifford's famous speech. If the actual geometry of the Universe was non-Euclidean then logic could point to no necessary truths. Bertrand Russell describes this scandal thus 'I discovered that, in addition to Euclidean geometry, there were various non-Euclidean varieties, and that no one knew which was right. If mathematics was doubtful, how much more doubtful ethics must be! If nothing was known, it could not be known how a virtuous life should be lived. Such thoughts troubled my adolescence, and drove me more and more towards philosophy.' In other words, discovering reality did not correspond with the nonsensical dogmas of philosophy,  drove this fellow further towards nonsense such that reality and utility and common sense disappeared from his mental horizon.

 What was the result of his teaming up with Whitehead? Both wasted their time. Russell wrote lucid nonsense. Whitehead wrote impenetrable garbage. Still, at least they didn't bum each other. We must be thankful for small mercies.

As for Tolstoy, whose wife thought Chertnov might be bumming him, there is a very simple way to read the following- 

Tolstoy's readers, in Russia or England or even India, would immediately identify the Biblical reference- viz. James 4.4.13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” 14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.

Far from being an 'untimely question', it is right and proper for a bonus paterfamilias raising a son and husbanding a goodly estate, to turn his mind to the 'four last things'- Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell. True, the answer had been supplied by the brother of Jesus almost two thousand years previously but, it is quite natural and proper for an aristocrat who has been a soldier and a man of the world to only 'get serious' after he has reached middle age and has settled down and is concerning himself with the proper education and instruction of his son and heir. 

From what little I know of Russian Orthodoxy, Tolstoy could easily have put himself under the spiritual direction of a starets and employed his marvellous literary gifts to reveal to the rest to the rest of the world certain evident points of superiority of the Greek Church to what we are familiar with in the West. In particular the Economia/ Akreibia distinction is very useful. Tolstoy, I think for 'kairotic' socio-political reasons, didn't take the easy path. He launched into an investigation of the most diverse soteriological traditions including those of India as propagated by Ramakrishna & Vivekananda. Would this lead him towards hesychasm and theosis? No. He went in what appeared a crazier direction- that of championing the Doukhobors. Apparently, the Canadians who had granted them asylum at Tolstoy's request looked askance at their habit of burning down school-houses and dancing naked around them. Later some returned to Mother Russia and, strangely enough, thrived on Stalin's collective farms!

 Callard with typical cack-handedness does not merely suppress the, quite conventional, Christian origin of the question troubling Tolstoy, she also pretends he didn't expend considerable effort researching other religions and sects.

This is nonsense. Both the question and the answer are supplied in the Bible which Christians hold to be uncreated Divine Revelation. Faith is founded upon a mystery, not on reason. Still, it is true that the fact Callard has shown great determination in not asking if she is actually a duck named Agnus Mallard, shows that her claim to to have decisively answered anything at all (since ducks are notoriously taciturn interlocutors) is gravely undermined. 

The plain fact is, Socrates has greater salience for the West than does Suqrat for the Islamic East because Socrates, like Christ, is a 'pharmakos' or 'korban'- i.e. a scapegoat sacrificed for the commonweal. Tolstoy's great importance is similarly linked to his eccentric but profound Christian faith. Callard, I believe, is Jewish. But that's not what motivates her suppressio veri or suggestio falsi. She is merely stupid and ignorant and has been rendered incapable of saying anything true or sensible by reason of her training in, and teaching of, arrant nonsense to imbeciles. 

Still, in one sense Callard is right. Studying philosophy at Uni is more likely to ensure you, like Socrates, earn nothing by it and end up punished by the law. This is why philosophy students must 'cancel' Tolstoy. He made a lot of money from his books and lived to a great age. Moreover he didn't have to sit down to pee. How is that fair?