[lit-ideas] Re: Which thinker/writer had the greatest personality defects?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 11:20:24 EDT
Donal quotes from Bryan Magee's assessment of Sir Karl Popper:
>"a major philosopher but not really a very likeable man.
>I hugely valued my relationship with him, but to be honest
>I never really liked him."
Oh, come on. Physically? What kind of 'relationship' is he talking about?
This is a good occasion to bring the attention my subscript-device.
For things like 'like' and 'likeable' we need a subscript device. With this
device, Magee's utterances become:
(1) A major-bm philosopher but not really-bm a very-bm like-bm-able man-bm.
(2) I hugely valued my relationship with him, but to be honest-bm, I never
really-bm liked him.
Note the use of the 'skirt' word, 'really' -- it would seem that Magee's
original utterance,
(3) He's not REALLY a very likeable man.
suggests ('implicates')
(4) He _is_ a very likeable man, only not _really_ so.
Ditto for his other utterance:
(5) To be honest, I never really liked him.
suggesting ('implicating'):
(6) But _not_ really so, I did.
But the point is, I don't think (and I don't think McEvoy sincerely thinks)
the greatest-dmce 'personality' defect is to be measured by whether you are
found to be by Mr. Magee not 'really' likeable. It's what Lady Popper thought
that counts -- and his two children.
Cheers,
JL
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