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6 responses to “Schliesser on Geach and Anscombe”

1. 

   George Gale

   January 20, 2014

   It would be a totally bizarre marriage if they didn’t both help each other out. Just sayin’.

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2. 

   Neil Levy

   January 21, 2014

   Eric’s point is that the article claims – without evidence – that he made her a better philosopher but not vice-versa. There is a difference between two people helping each other and the expectation that the help will always run from the male to the female. So you’re just saying something quite beside the point.

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3. 

   Former Leeds Graduate Student, Somewhat Precariously Employed

   January 21, 2014

   I notice that everyone’s still tiptoeing around something that seemed to be implicit in a lot of stories about Geach that seemed to be current when I was a graduate student at Leeds (long after his retirement) – namely, that he was an intellectual bully – and on occasion a physically aggressive one – whose effect on his (then) junior colleagues at Leeds was not at all positive.
   He may have been a great philosopher; but oral tradition suggests he was not a very nice man. I don’t think it was incumbent on anyone to mention any of this in an obituary, any more than it would be to do so at a memorial service. But it probably shouldn’t be forgotten either.

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4. 

   Eric Schliesser

   January 21, 2014

   I thought my post was pretty, albeit politely, explicit on exactly this point.

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5. 

   Former Leeds Graduate Student, Somewhat Precariously Employed

   January 21, 2014

   It’s a disagreeement of little substance, I think, but I’d say that although you dropped some fairly heavy hints, describing someone as an ‘intellectual hitman’ or ‘boundary enforcer’ leaves things implicit. (Perhaps I could put the point this way: an intellectual hit-man isn’t literally a hit-man; but an intellectual bully is literally a bully.) I’m glad you moved the conversation in this direction: I’m not sure I accept the implication – if it was intended – that what I said was not polite; or think that being polite is always a desideratum when discussing these matters.

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6. 

   Eric Schliesser

   January 21, 2014

   I did not think you were impolite nor do I think that one ought to be polite/civil about such matters–if I did think so, I would be a huge hypocrite.

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