Sounds pretty interesting. Would you recommend any of his works to one who is not well-versed in philosophical jargon? Is there a body of work which I will need to be familiar with if I'm to have any hope of understanding Strawson?
Here is a link to Freedom and Resentment.
He is survived by his wife, Grace, whom he renamed Ann
I'm sorry, what?
"wife" s/b "bound variable"
Perhaps he felt her lacking in gracefulness, and didn't want her name to be deceptive.
I wonder if he said, "From henceforth your name will be Ann. And smile, it's not so bad!"
Speaking of beliefs "stubbornly held ... at a primitive level of reflection," my pre-pubescent self will never forgive Sir Peter's son Galen for calling Robert Pirsig "big-nosed and poor-postured." Fargin' Icehole.
Great.
Can anybody post the text of that verse, "Défense de pousser des cris de joie?" I'm curious about the tone he takes, and how much compassion enters into his sense of the situation.
4: What's especially bizarre about that is that the newspaper reports her name as Grace, suggesting that as soon as he died, she reverted back, i.e., that she was a bound variable, just like you said, and that the value for $hername changes depending on precondition: married?
Weird.
I know it sounds presumptuous to rename your wife, but lets not forget how many enemies this guy must have had, and what role that would play in some of the stories about him that we would hear.
Actually, now that I think of it, lots of people have renamed their lovers and spouses. Hey, Laura Ingalls Wilder did.
Wait, but she renamed him in her fictionalized account of their life, right? If that's what this guy did, that's fine.
Sylvia comic strip, two little girls talking.
"My mom's marrying her boyfriend"
"The one with the cool car? Great!"
"She's going to take his name"
"Really?"
"Yeah, it'll be weird, calling her 'Bob'"
Not to mention Dante. (Amn't I correct to think that the real woman Beatrice was of a different name?)
No, she just preferred another name.
Huh, I don't remember that. What was his name? Alonso? Something like that? That's weird too.
Alack, Wikipaedia says I am wrong.
I sense that some here feel there is a contradiction between "keeping your own name," which btw, is always your surname, and allowing your lover to call you by a name of their own devising. I don't think they're the same at all.
#16
Yes, his name was Alonzo, apparently an old family name of the Wilders', but she preferred to call him "Manley."
Happens to me all the time.
Be interesting to know if she had continued to go by "Grace" among her friends and family, and was "Ann" when she was out with Sir Peter. If she reverted to "Grace" on his passing, I would expect that she had.
Well, the article didn't say, "whom he called Ann" but "whom he renamed Ann," which implies something different. Also, do you have a cite for LIW changing her husband's name? This Wikipedia page doesn't mention it.
I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if the obit has referred to "his wife, Grace, whom he called Ann". It said he renamed her, which to me is a power accorded only to such third paties as the present King of France and God.
Thanks Becks!
There's got to be a joke in here somewhere about philosophers of language renaming people, but I can't find it.
The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
</William James>
... a-and, it's not unheard-of for that person to christen that highly peculiar social self. After all, being social, that self did not exist before the relationship did.
Since nobody seems willing to do so, I'd like to wish Matt a happy birthday.
I guess SB found it before I did. I will have to settle for redefining terms in common usage, thus:
pwned!
Yes, his name was Alonzo, apparently an old family name of the Wilders', but she preferred to call him "Manley."
Wasn't his name Almanzo, suggesting that Manley was more of a conventional nickname than the Grace-->Ann thing?
There's got to be a joke in here somewhere about philosophers of language renaming people, but I can't find it.
From a certain point of view, purporting oneself to have renamed another is itself a droll philosophical joke.
Thanks Tiastropher, and anyone else who posts similarly by the time this comment shows up!
There's got to be a joke in here somewhere about philosophers of language renaming people,
What it's setting off for me is the White Knight from Alice: "The name of my wife is X. My wife is called Y. My wife's name is called Z..."
Oh, but if we wish you happy birthday now, then "no thanks"?
Yeah, LB, it was Almanzo, I found, and that does sound more like a nickname.
27-Not exactly a joke, but that's partially what I was going for in 6.
19: I sense that some here feel there is a contradiction between "keeping your own name"....
In relation to 13, not really, I just like the strip.
Whoa, simulpostage. 26 to 19, 33 to 27.
Happy birthday, Gilbert.
if the obit has referred
"had"
such third paties as
"pasties"
I'm going to start calling everyone Grace. So there.
36: It seemed somewhat paltry to thank them in advance, rather than thanking them especially after they had commented, like this: Thanks!
I seem to be attempting to fill baa's niche as the incisive colonic commentator, if Labs hasn't already done so.
Why is the Left so unwilling to wish Matt Weiner a happy birthday? I wish I could believe the e-mails I am receiving to the contrary, but no, uncelebratory is the very face of the modern Left.
I'll say it and I don't care what the Islamofascists think: Happy birthday, Matt!
"Say 'Happy Birthday,' Gracie."
"Happy Birthday, Gracie"
41: Third pasties are sometimes necessary.
All past, present, and future happy-wishers are hereby thanked, including 'smasher.
"Almonzo" is right. And I'll concede that "Manley" is clearly a development, a variant. I do remember a passage where she quite deliberately has herself tell him "I'm going to call you..." but I can't find the place. I expect it's in The First Four Years, which I haven't been able to find. This, it seems to me, is a bit more than just a nickname, if my memory serves. I did find an interesting back-and-forth between them about the wedding vows, and whether she would be asked to say "obey," because she wasn't going to say it.
Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy.
After many years of pondering, I decided that "Magill" was her last name. Still can't explain "Lil" and "Nancy."
Thanks, My Alter Ego. Pwesome. And Happy Birthday, Mr. Weiner.
Derek Bailey wanted to rename his wife-like partner "George" (from "Karen"), at least according to one track he recorded with the following lyrics (some mistranscriptions):
ahh listen to that ... the guitar
the electric guitar
a romantic instrument
a lovers' instrument ahh hmm ohhah
first guitar I ever heard when I was a child was the ... hawaiian guitar
an electric hawaiian guitar
wonderful sound ... romantic ... ah hmm yes wonderful sound wonderful
it was played by my ... my uncle who ... used to make the pickups for ... electric guitars
this was many years ago and he was the first ... person to make
pickups for electric guitars ... in Sheffield
Uncle George
I always ... had great affection for the name George--my father was called George. He hated the guitar.
I had, ah, 7 or 8 uncles called George, and then there was aunty
George.
I once saw a movie ... in which all the main characters were called
George well the three main characters which was interesting because
they were all in the same ... family there was the father, he was called George, the mother was called George, and the child, a
daughter, was called George.
The film, sad to say, was not called George. I don't remember what it was called, but had it been called George I would have remembered.
Ray Miland, I remember, played the lead part; should have been George Brent or George Raft or ... George Saunders perhaps.
One if my very favorite musicians is called George. George Lewis. I like him. I admire him, for many things. But it does him no harm at all in my eyes that he's called George. Hmmm yes.
When my partner and I first got together ... I tried to persuade her to change her name to George. I said, "You got used ... to the name Karen, but why don't we use George, for a while. You'll like it."
She didn't want to know. And, when we were first making love, I would sometimes, in passion, cry out, "George!". It caused a certain amount of difficulty ... even when I changed it to Georgette ... she wasn't happy.
So ... so we dropped it. But now sometimes I think ... hmmm.
But we were talking about ... the guitar. My guitars are all called
George. Yes. No problem for them, being called George. They don't give me any kind of ... argument ... at all.
All that about George, and Guitars, and whether they give any kind of argument, without mentioned that George whose guitar gently wept?
45: I don't know about that. I just received an e-mail from someone who described himself as left-leaning anti-celebratory before the recent birthday wishes:
"We have only two options now:1. Happy birthday, Matt.
2. Drive all the non-well-wishers into the sea."
I'm glad to see this birthday forcing some hard-thinking among liberals.
Those two are not mutually exclusive are they? Indeed they would seem to complement one another.
But 'Smasher said he didn't believe the e-mails.