2/2/2016
On having one’s cake and eating it too. — You can’t have it both ways: insist on being a leading light in technical analytic philosophy AND insist on being its leading critic.
1/2/2016
The function of fools. — Some academics I would put on a committee only in order to have a randomizing mechanism in the decision making.
31/1/2016
Bruckner’s Fourth. — I wouldn’t want to be one of the trumpeters in this symphony: the tedium of playing the same sequence over and over and over again would be unbearable. And incidentally, I prefer my classical music with harps.
30/1/2016
Haydn’s “Le Midi” Symphony. — Sheer bliss to listen to, especially the second movement. But I can’t help thinking that it would sound even better as a string quartet.
29/1/2016
Vertu à deux. — One of the advantages of good academic teamwork is that it keeps you intellectually honest: it is a lot easier to talk yourself into taking an intellectual shortcut than it is to persuade your co-author.
28/1/2016
Deep disagreement. — I never write about the arguments I (very occasionally) have with my wife. It’s time for the exception that proves the rule. We have competing metaphors for philosophical work. I think of philosophers as people who relentlessly fight with the pockets of air underneath a gigantic carpet. As soon as they step on one bubble in one place, a new bubble appears in another place. My wife prefers a different image: the philosopher is a hamster in a wheel — up all night trying to get to an imaginary finish-line.
27/1/2016
My five minutes of fame. — When my “thought” praising a string quartet is discovered by the musicians involved, and broadcast into the whole wide world over their twitter account.
26/1/2016
Camus Reloaded. — You must imagine academics happy.
25/1/2016
Momento mori. — The customers of my health club are between twenty and ninety years old. Accordingly, in the locker room, one encounters bodies at all stages of decay. It makes for a regular reminder of the endgame to come (if you are lucky enough to reach it in the first place.)
24/1/2016
Quatuor Zaïde at the Konzerthaus. — In the series “Rising Stars” this marvelous French string quartet performed Shostakovitch (op. 108), Mozart (KV 387) and Bartók (Sz 102) — and two movements of Haydn’s Hob. III/48 and III/44 thrown in as encores. The pieces selected made for a great lesson in how the genre has developed between 1782 and 1960. And the enthusiasm of Charlotte Juillard (violin), Leslie Boulin-Raulet (violin), Sarah Chenaf (viola), and Juliette Salmona (cello) was palpable at every turn.
23/1/2016
Saturday. — Piano lesson at 8am; concert in the Musikverein at 8pm. This nicely frames my day and reduces admin work and four hours of undergraduate lectures to a mere intermezzo.
22/1/2016
When the cat is away. — I returned from my trip to Munich to the news that, in my absence, my son has taken over the piano, and composed his first piece. (Strongly influenced by “Peter and the Wolf”, but anyway …)
21/1/2016
That sobering experience … — … when the students in an undergraduate seminar (on average) ask tougher, and better-informed, questions about your paper than a room full of postdocs and professors.
20/1/2016
Financial reporting for the ERC. — I am all for checks and balances. But the eighteen-month check-up shouldn’t be so complicated that the university finance office, a chartered accountant, a project officer, a secretary and the PI have to work for weeks to put it all together.
19/1/2016
Big shoes to fill. — I feel honored to be speaking (in Munich on Wednesday) in the same series of talks that has previously seen the likes of Roman Frigg and Sally Haslanger. But, what again did I have to do for my feet to swell up — and quickly?
18/1/2016
Glutton for punishment. — Something in me must have figured that six Viennese undergraduate lectures in eight days wasn’t enough. And thus Mr Ambition inside me persuaded my (feeble) voices of reason to have us add a departmen-tal seminar and two undergrad classes in Munich.
#thethingsonedoesforaweissbier
17/1/2016
“Genuine, faultless and irresolvable disagreements”. — Nothing like a four-hour undergraduate lecture on relativism (including a live discussion) to break the monotony of a Winter Saturday afternoon: I think I have earned my evening out on the town, with Sarah, Chopin, Liszt and good Chinese food.
16/1/2016
The two cultures. — My piano-teacher: “I don’t get it: how can you speak freely in front of a large audience? I wouldn’t be able to get a single word out! I wish I could do that.” — Me: “I don’t get it: how can you play the piano in front of a large audience? I wouldn’t be able to get a single note right!” — He: “Want to swap?” — Me: “Deal!”
15/1/2016
Tongue-in-cheek. — In the age of social media, sarcasm, irony, or humorous self-deprecation are recognized for what they are only if surrounded by a thick layer of smileys and exclamation marks.
14/1/2016
Odd geek out. — Am I the only person in the universe (I mean “on social media”) not posting stories about what David Bowie meant or means to me?
13/1/2016
Rite de passage. — My piano teacher did not insist on me learning „Für Elise“, I did. Of course the tune is so overused that it sounds tacky and trite. Moreover, for millions of people the first ten notes are the only tune they can ever carry on the piano, and alas, they do so whenever they get their hands on one. And yet, I wanted to play a piece that almost every student of the piano has had to learn at some stage. The need for community …
12/1/2016
Musical obsession. — These days, my mind and body are so preoccupied with practicing “Für Elise”, that my right hand keeps typing, uncontrollably, “L-O-L-O-L-H-K-J-G” — and totally out of context. (Like: “The best strategy for defending relativism is … lololhkjg.”)
11/1/2016
“Love in Times of Revolution”. — This is the title of a very interesting and impressive exhibition at the “Kunstforum Wien”, running until the end of January. We went to see it this afternoon. It presents works of artist couples of the Russian avant-garde: Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Varvara Stepanova and Alexandr Rodchenko, Liubov Popova and Alexandr Vesnin, Olga Rosanova and Alexei Kruchenykh, as well as Valentina Kulagina and Gustav Klutsis. — For a few years after the Russian Revolution, male and female artists were (almost) equal, not least because of progressive state-legislation (e.g. divorce, abortion, and homosexual relationships were allowed, and men and women were equal before the law). In the mentioned relationships, men and women influenced each other, and sometimes even did joint work. The couples were at the heart of the artistic explosion of the late 1910s and early 1920s. — Alas, it all ended with the rise of Stalinism: even artists who actively worked on the Stalin-cult, like Klutsis, were killed. And Stalinism came with a rather traditional conception of the role of women. — I couldn’t help thinking of this down-turn in relation to the recent events in Novosibirsk where an avant-garde production of Wagner’s *Tannhäuser* was cancelled and the artistic director, Boris Mezdrich, fired. This is the first time since the Soviet era that an artistic director of a state theatre was kicked out. Artists across Russia are no doubt seeing the writing on the wall.
10/1/2016
Candid Camera live. — In my fitness club this morning, a man stood in front of the mirror using the hairdryer for several minutes and with great care and circumspection. It took me quite a while to spot the anomaly: the poor man was bald. And not not just a bit bald: supertrue bald.
9/1/2016
The bore’s lament. — As far as I can tell, I have yet to be “defriended” or “unfollowed” by anyone on social media. What’s wrong with me? Isn’t anything I say or do ever controversial and provocative? (Not even this “update”?)
8/1/2016
The Decline of the West. — Today and for the first time ever, I found a smiley emoticon in a published text by a philosopher. Worse still, it is used, not mentioned. And the author of the paper is — wait for it: Crispin Wright.
7/1/2016
*Winter is Coming.* — There is much I agree with in Kasparov’s book against Putin. He is right, for example, to insist that Western countries should not give Putin a carte blanche with respect to Russian domestic affairs. We owe it to the Russian people to fight for their human rights, and especially when their own protests are suppressed by undemocratic means. That said, I regret that Kasparov damages his case through his unbearable „Besserwisser“ attitude, his „Fox News“ sympathies, and his crass classification of Western politicians as either good or bad. (Merkel, Schröder and Obama all qualify as bad.)
6/1/2016
Groucho at it again. — This is our seventh ball-season in Vienna, and we still haven’t been invited to a single one. Not that I know how to dance. Not that I would even go. Just saying.
5/1/2016
First stanza. — Circling the Ringstraße in the dark, with the fresh snow crunching under your feet, trying to slip you up.
4/1/2016
Unfinished. — One day I’ll write an “Ode to the Ringstraße”. (After all, I circle it at least 300 times per year, and even when — like today — a strong and icy wind blows my head off.)