The philosophy blogosphere, perhaps like the profession itself (and certainly like cyberspace), has divided into camps. This blog, as longtime readers know, is not friendly to the “wokerati,” but the “safe space” blog (whose provocations I mostly ignore) tried to run a thread on the death of John Searle. Predictably, given its audience, it devolved into anonymous outrage that they couldn’t pile on Searle for his bad behavior, actual and alleged (indeed, one comment accused Searle of fascism!); all the comments were deleted.
By contrast, our memorial thread on Searle yielded interesting comments (including critical ones) from Galen Strawson, Ned Block, John Martin Fischer, Herman Cappelen, Brian Skyrms, and other adults. I am grateful to have such serious readers.
The phrase ‘Does the fact’ naturally invites howls of derision: it’s a fact that every child knows that the Japanese…