the material I have seen on Public Reason and the comments here all seemed to start with the question of the applicability or otherwise of theories in books everyone reads, as opposed to expounding original ideas, and approach of starting from authority reminded me of the methods of medieval scholars,

That’s not to say one has to agree with everything you say, with every articulated idea, but that I agree at least with your process, and the ideas behind that.

Good of you to ferret out what I was trying to get at. I’m particularly interested in trying to “elevate” some of the issues that I write about to a plane where people will take them seriously as topics for real thought. Obviously there are obstacles…

Matt: I’m glad to see you share the same careerist values as SCM, and I’m sure that you’ll do well in law school with those values. Hey, you already have tenure, or you’re going to get it someday, right? Why do you need to care what anyone else thinks? It’s like being a made-man in the mob. Pretty sweet deal you got going for yourself, and now you won’t even have to hear the opinions of anyone outside your little circle. If that’s not upholding the highest values of John Rawls, I don’t know what is.

Katherine: Academics is not a private activity. It’s a public one that receives generous public funding. In some cases, undeserved public funding, apparently.

so, maybe the wording of the public reason contributors’ policy could have been put a little more diplomatically. but, seriously – if public reason had been a blog for professional linguists and it was titled “public discourse” or something like that, and it had the same contributors’ policy, would you all get ticked off that those without PhD’s couldn’t offer your views on the latest developments in semantics?

you guys really took the piss out of simon for no good reason and in a very good natured manner, he responded politely and without much rancor, even as you all went about deliberately misinterpreting him.

if anything, your behavior is an advertisement condemning the social skills of people who spend most their time blogging, while simon’s behavior is an advertisement for the capacity of academic philosophers to debate vigorously but respectfully, Colin McGinn and Ted Honderich apparently being high-profile exceptions. (And Leiter, too? But, I like Brian’s blog and think he’s actually pretty fair, so i am not going to be a hater.)

In short, Engels and Badger both make the case, through their obnoxious behavior, for the usefulness of an academic-philosophers-only blog.

There may be something in books as you say, but I doubt it. Of course you mean English language books, which I particularly shun. Btw, where you teach, do they have a strong foreign-languages program to go with their excellent philosophy instruction?

Badger, do you seriously believe that there’s nothing worth reading in the couple of thousand years of work in the canons of political philosophy? Do you seriously believe that you can get very far with the problems of PP without knowing how others have addressed them? Because if so, you have revealed yourself as a crank. Hopefully you’re just exaggerating for rhetorical effect. And as it happens, yes, my institution does have a highly-rated foreign language department, and many of my students do joint honours in languages and philosophy, although what this has to do with the conversation we were having, I have no idea. I note that you haven’t answered either of the other two points I made at 61. Is this because you now accept that they’re correct?