[lit-ideas] Confessions of a Philosopher

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:23:39 -0500 (EST)

In a message dated 11/29/2013 3:38:15  P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
a better book,  also written by an academic who does not pretend that 
academic philosophy is key  to the subject or even that important to it, might 
be 
Bryan Magee's "Confessions  of a Philosopher",  

I wonder if Magee considers the 'conversational' (as it were, since this is 
 the title of a book) of 'confessions'.
 
Cfr.
 
Magee confesses.
Magee confessed.
 
More generally:
 
The philosopher confesses.
The philosopher confessed.
 
I think Daniel Vanderveken and J. R. Searle would have 'confess' as an  
'illocutionary verb'. 
 
From online source:
 
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=confess
 
late 14c., from Old French confesser (transitive and intransitive), from  
Vulgar Latin "confessare", from Latin confess-, past participle stem of  
"confiteri", "to acknowledge," from com- "together" (see com-) + "fateri" "to  
admit," akin to fari "speak" (see fame (n.)). 
 
"Its original religious sense [or 'use' as I prefer -- 'do not multiply  
senses beyond necssity' -- Speranza] was of one who avows his religion in 
spite  of persecution or danger but does not suffer martyrdom. Old French 
confesser  thus had a figurative sense of "to harm, hurt, make suffer." 
Related: 
Confessed;  confessing. An Old English word for it was andettan."
 
The wiki reads of Magee:
 
"Born of working class parents in Hoxton, Magee was close to his father,  
but had a difficult relationship with his abusive and overbearing mother. An  
evacuee during World War II, he was educated at Christ's Hospital school on 
a  London County Council scholarship."
 
And this may lead us to different sub-uses of 'confess' -- within RC,  
within C. of E., within the Presbytereans, &c. 
 
It does not sound a 'philosophical' verb.
 
But I guess that's part of the implicature -- "Confessions of a  
Philosopher". Or not. "Philosophies of a Confesser" does not quite ring. 
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
 
 
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[lit-ideas] Confessions of a Philosopher

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