My post-title is a (serious-silly) pun.
Here's a review of an edited volume on Searle. The author has the peculiar tendency not to mention the names of "the authors" of the chapters reviewed (they are called, "authors," even when quoted!). (The editors of the volume are also not named within the confines of the review--we only know their identity in virtue of NDPR's format!) If it makes us focus intensely on the arguments (or whatever) there is a kind of elegance to this procedure (think Nick Bourbaki). But oddly enough, not only is Searle regularly named, so are folk (e.g., Jaegwon Kim, Alexander Nehemas, J.L. Austin), who (as far as I can tell) are not in the volume at all! What could motivate this? (At one point I wondered if it was some kind of weird status game: Searle, Kim, Nehemas, Austin--vs the nobodies?)
The review has the peculiar result to focus attention on Searle's inability to be understood by nameless authors. "In many cases Searle charges the authors with misunderstanding his views." Let's call this "The McDowell Move." Now as the author notes -- with references to Austin -- this move can, in fact, be a subject of profound philosophic investigation. But it turns out "most of Searle's accusations of misunderstanding cannot be so neatly brought under the Austinian taxonomy." Yet, a bit later we learn, "Searle uses some authors' confusions about the relation of ethics and institutional reality, not only to abate those confusions, but to elaborate on the place of ethics and aesthetics within his social ontology." Hmm...isn't this "enough about you and your pesky objections, let's talk about my interesting ideas?" (Since we're name-dropping, John Haugeland used to point out this is one of my favorite moves.)
A part of me thinks that there are duties to the profession and to the authors reviewed that have not been met in this review, but, please, don't let me interrupt the conversation...
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