THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026
The doldrums invade our camps: As a matter of fact, we did in fact take Hum 3 during the first semester of our junior year.
We know that because we believe our transcript. It says that we received an A-minus in the class. It also says that we failed Kant—that we were handed an F.
Or, perhaps, "did Kant fail us?" We're quoting our award-winning college years memoir, for which we served as Capitol Style cover boy at some point in (we'll guess) 1999
According to an expert we can no longer find, Capitol Style lost $3 million during its three-year run, the bulk of which had little or nothing to do with us, or with the grades we received that semester, in which the gift D we received from Professor Quine kept us out of Vietnam, where so many others served.
(We don't know why we were gifted with that D. At the time, the rule said this—if you were failed in two or more courses by people like this "Kant," you were out on the street for a year.)
As it went, we were in fact failed by Kant. (Who could possibly agree to pretend to have read such a book?) We dropped out of Nat Sci 5—an actual lab course!—after the lectures were over. We've always felt sorry for the puzzled Radcliffe freshman who got stuck with being our lab partner. At least she didn't have to pretend that she had read Kant!
After dropping out of Nat Sci 5, we transferred into Crane Brinton (History 134a), in his last year of teaching what he was said to call "the last of the roaring guts."
Given the fact that lectures were over, we never set eyes on the man! We brought down the house at the jam-packed optional make-up hour exam, struggled to a B-plus.
Did we really take Hum 3? Our transcript plainly claims we did, and we do have a lengthy term paper, whose closing text (from the Odyssey) we expect to reaffirm on Saturday.
We don't recall setting eyes on Professor Finley, although we probably did.
Why were we we flirting with disaster in the manner described? In retrospect, we have no clear idea. Looking back, we stand by our refusal to pretend to read a book like the Critique, whatever the price of refusal might turn out to be.
The high-humidity August doldrums are currently in effect. Normally, we console ourselves with Professor Horwich at such times. We'll post him saying such things as this:
Was Wittgenstein Right?
[...]
Philosophy is respected, even exalted, for its promise to provide fundamental insights into the human condition and the ultimate character of the universe, leading to vital conclusions about how we are to arrange our lives. It’s taken for granted that there is deep understanding to be obtained of the nature of consciousness, of how knowledge of the external world is possible, of whether our decisions can be truly free, of the structure of any just society, and so on—and that philosophy’s job is to provide such understanding. Isn’t that why we are so fascinated by it?
If so, then we are duped and bound to be disappointed, says Wittgenstein. For these are mere pseudo-problems, the misbegotten products of linguistic illusion and muddled thinking.
Normally, that's where we go at these times.
Tomorrow, we'll show you what happens, in the translation by Professor Fagles, when Odysseus arrives at the tents where brilliant Achilles is sulking. It starts in the language shown below, but where does the passage end up?
So Ajax and Odysseus made their way at once
where the battle lines of breakers crash and drag,
praying hard to the god who moves and shakes the earth
that they might bring the proud heart of Achilles
round with speed and ease.
Praying hard to the god who moves the earth where the breakers crash and drag! No, it doesn't exactly matter, but what are we told after that?
Bob should have completed Nat Sci 5.
ReplyDeleteI hate Dogface George.
ReplyDeleteThat's sad. Hope you get over it.
DeleteYou aren’t helping, DG.
DeleteI love Dogface solo much I had his baby.
DeleteSomerby seems to consider it chic to have evaded the draft without doing much academic work. It is a bizarre attitude, especially given the many students who would love to have held his seat in those classes. Now it seems like a kind of fraud to me.
ReplyDeleteI read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason myself for the Intro to Philosophy course at UCLA. It wasn't any better or worse than any of our assigned readings of philosophy classics. Steve Martin was a UCLA Philosophy major around then. I later changed my major to History. Philosophy was disappointing because I discovered it to be nothing more than a bunch of boys trying to one-up each other in discussion sections, interrupting and talking over each other as they do now on Fox. That may be why there are still so few female philosophy majors. I loved symbolic logic, which turned out to be important to my later career in computer science (no such major at UCLA in the mid-1960s). I find it incomprehensible that someone would remain in a major where he was failing his courses like that. And now he pretends disinterest, but why study something you don't care about? When work is difficult, it is typical for students to blame the material instead of their own efforts. Pretending to have failed on purpose is just a ruse.
It is perhaps typical that Somerby always quotes Horwich and not Wittgenstein himself. As in nearly all of Somerby's quotes, the material excerpted occurs right at the beginning of the book, suggesting Somerby never got around to reading that one through either. Like Trump.
Here is my own name-dropping. I voted for Weld when I lived in MA. I also voted for Hillary Clinton for Senator. I find myself wondering if Somerby had established real work habits, whether he might have succeeded as a standup comedian. My own stint at Harvard included participation at the Media Lab at MIT. Later, I worked for IBM and discovered that computer scientists engaged in AI modeling were more inclined to base their systems on philosophical ideas than on neuroscience. I asked why and was told it was because the ideas were better defined in philosophy. This was done even when the empirical findings in psychology diverged from the philosophy. Computer minds do not have to resemble human minds.
Today I read about the many Harvard bigwigs who participated in Epstein's events, defended Epstein and helped legitimize his activities, rewarded with funding from his enterprises. It makes me sick to my stomach. I also read about the fabricated study results and fraud among some of the big-name researchers. I wonder whether fame produces corruption or whether it was the money.
I'm glad Somerby has happier memories than I do.
No-one with a high-achieving career would waste time commenting on The Daily Howler.
DeleteSomerby is a retiree, otherwise you could say the same about him.
Delete6:48 - Do you realize that your comment is contradicted by the very comment you're threading to? And that your comment is self-denigrating?
DeleteI hate you, Dogface George. And it’s not sad at all. I enjoy hating you.
DeleteI like you, Dogface George. I don't enjoy liking you, but I like you.
Delete“Somerby seems to consider it chic to have evaded the draft without doing much academic work.”
DeleteAn assumption, piled upon a presumption, piled upon another presumption. Not a very good start for a critique, but I get the gist of what you’re saying. I would be interested to see you justify anything you wrote, in just the first sentence, because you’re a pretty good writer.
Leroy
Harvard was one of the few univs where famous faculty were required to teach undergrads. Hope it is still that way. I would have loved to hear Quine or Hilary Putnam.
ReplyDeleteSomerby seems to be extending his anti-intellectualism, trying to make it sound cool instead of foolish. What a waste.
Congratulations to King Chickenshit on his latest miserable jobs report, recording a drop of 23000 jobs in July. Well done!
ReplyDelete