[This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]
One of the great joys of academic life is that, if you are receptive to it, you meet interesting new people. These are generally also younger than you — any campus is a steep pyramid in which the young vastly outnumber you at any age — and so you can avoid the slow vanishing of landmarks and shared habits that are so characteristic of natural aging and decay.
I mention this because on Friday, while at a lunch to mark the bittersweet departure of my co-author Federica Russo who landed a professorship in Utrecht {and so reminded me of the persistent dysfunctionality of my home university], I met bright young scholars with inspiring projects in the philosophy department. (It was my first encounter with the department in almost four years.) I was also reminded that these long covid diaries are sometimes read by more distant acquaintances. (For my official "covid diaries" see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here.)
As I walked home over the bustling Rokin I was in a reflective mood not just because of the lunch. Earlier that day I had visited the practice of my dad’s foot reflexology therapist, Dorine van Saanten-Daane, who had grown into one of his friends. She had invited me to visit shortly after his death (recall), in part to mourn together and in part for me to experience what her therapy was like. I resisted at first because while I mourned my dad I didn’t want to have to navigate her sense of bereavement. And then lockdowns and my long covid got in the way.
As an aside, many years ago (in 2018), a student came up to my after a seminar. She turned out to be a friend of one of the children of Dorine’s long-time business partners. My student informed me (after establishing I was indeed the same Eric Schliesser that wrote Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker) that my book was proudly on display next to some memorabilia of my father’s in the practice. Back in the day when I asked Dorine about it she informed she had bought it after my dad’s death because he was so proud of me.
I think I decided to take her up on her invitation because on Monday I had told my GP about a tremor I have in my hands. My wife (a surgeon) increasingly noticed it. While it doesn’t hinder me at all in daily life (and don’t have any fixity), I do have a tendency to spill ground espresso beans when I try to put them in my Mocha. My dad used to have it, too. I always assumed it was a kind of effect of trauma with a childhood in a concentration camp. But I now think it runs in the family. (My sister revealed hers on Friday.) It seems to have only started after the onset of long covid, so it may have been triggered by it in me.
So when I visited the practice on Friday morning I discretely checked for the presence of my book. (Didn’t see it.) But later during our session Dorine did show me a tasteful collage of pictures and drawings/memorabilia connected to my dad placed on her desk. (In my mind I called it a ‘shrine.’) After some catching up I did receive a foot reflexology session which was divine although I missed most of it because I slept through it.
As regular readers know, my sister taught me a modest meditation technique that almost unfailingly puts me to sleep. Luckily Dorine took it as a big compliment seeing in it my trust and receptivity toward her. I suspected my sleep also had to do with the fact that I had been sleeping badly again because of my return to Amsterdam and the impending start of the academic year on Tuesday, my life had become more demanding with more socializing, multitasking, more meetings, and also more triggers of modest anxiety and organizational decision-making.
On the Rokin, as I was thinking of the invisible threads that still connected me to my dad’s life, I decided to write a post about Jan Jongbloed (1940-2023) an icon of my youth. Jongbloed’s passing didn’t go completely unnoticed, but it wasn’t a major event. Yet, Jongbloed was the goalkeeper in the two lost finals of 74 and 78. Unusually, even then, he played without gloves and he anticipated the ‘modern’ goalkeeper who is very much as much as the last defender as the first link in attack. He had incredible reflexes, was fearless, and had a sense of showmanship by making his saves look spectacular. (Go check it out on youtube.)
Jongbloed’s international career was incredibly long-lasting but erratic. He was never thought of as the best keeper of his era, and never played for a ‘big’ club. I saw Jongbloed play in for FC Amsterdam in a relatively empty Olympic stadium in one of the first professional matches I ever witnessed. (I believe we were taken there with the youth teams of AFC, where I played.) FC Amsterdam (then a relatively new creation that has united the professional activities of many of Amsterdam’s traditional neighborhood clubs) was, then, the other Amsterdam team. I liked listening to interviews of him because of his independence, and he spoke in the typical Amsterdam accent that was already disappearing when I was kid. FC Amsterdam soon relegated and folded.
When I was home I called my GP because I had not received a referral yet. As regular readers know, in England since May I get semi-regular botox shots in my neck in order to combat the side effects of migraine. I would like to get those in Amsterdam so I can reduce the number of visits to London while I am teaching. One of the most frustrating features of a ‘new chronic illness’ are the recurring, emotionally and physically exhausting efforts of having to get care when you are most vulnerable even after it’s been established it’s useful for you (and you are willing to pay out of pocket). In general, I don’t have libertarian sympathies, but the system of rationing and rules that structure all modern health systems does remind me of the enduring germ of truth in that philosophy.
As an aside, the initial impact of botox was spectacular. For about six weeks all my migraine related symptoms including cognitive fatigue and recurring tinnitus disappeared altogether. Unfortunately, in the second week of July, I got a modest flu on holiday and then about three weeks, the symptoms returned including the headaches. But since the second week of August, things have improved again. I do get bouts of cognitive fatigue (which is the first phase of migraine according to the neurologists at NHS’ long covid clinic in London), but I usually spot it before the headaches start and by meditating and modest rest/pause I don’t go through the next cycle of headaches. I want to continue with the botox, or at least give it a few more chances, because if I can avoid the headaches my quality of life is massively better.
The next morning I arose to news Jimmy Buffett died. I had never heard of Buffett when I stepped on Tufts’ Medford campus in the Fall of 1989. But several of my dorm-mates were from small towns in Massachusetts and Parrot Heads, and I tagged along to Great Woods to see and hear him. I loved the tailgating — a new experience — and (as we say now) the vibes. (Undoubtedly the smell of thousands of spliffs reminded me a bit of Amsterdam.)
During my sixteen years stateside, I endlessly listened to Songs You Know By Heart, especially after I got my convertible with my first pay-check (and mom and grandma’s help). I eat sliced mango nearly every day, and I always get a chuckle, then, humming a few bars from Last Mango in Paris. In fact, Come Monday (a surprisingly subtle ballad—’subtle’ one should not overuse around Buffett,), is one of my favorite songs.
In it there is lyric that goes,
Remember that night in Montana
When we said there'd be no room for doubt
Which unfailingly reminds me of my own road trip during the Fall of 1993, and uttered some such words myself in Missoula. I honor the memory of that night (the romance didn’t last), in part, by using ‘nescio’ as my email handle (and also the pen-name of one of my favorite writers).
This is all set up because I just received word from Helen Irving that Stephen Gaukroger (1950-1923) just died. I had my last lunch with Stephen outside at the Wells Tavern in Hampstead a few days before he was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. Because it was my turn to treat, he had come up the hill down from Belsize Park where he and Helen owned an apartment. During our lunch he was unaware of his tumor, but in between academic gossip and talking about our work we did discuss his health because several other serious conditions required treatment after his Summer travel plans. I did share a sense of foreboding with my wife because I had noticed he was not planning any new major projects (see below).
I tend to think of Stephen as one of the great scholar of seventeenth century natural philosophy. His work on Descartes and Bacon helped inaugurate and participate in ‘the contextual turn’ of the study of history and philosophy of science. Because he was in distant Sydney, my first meeting with him was relatively late in my academic development. I suspect we first met at a HOPOS event about twenty years ago. But we first got to know each other at a small workshop Dana Jalobeanu had organized in Bucharest while I was in Leiden (so around 2007 or so). It was a consequential event for me because I first met several of my future PhD students, but also spent a long time talking with Stephen about the Leibniz and Huygens relationship while we were waiting for a delayed flight at the gate.
Not long after, my department was undergoing a merger and foreseeable budget cuts and Stephen invited me to apply for a position at the department he was building at Aberdeen alongside Catherine Wilson. This itself was a memorable trip because I first met the late M.A. (‘Sandy’) Stewart, who had retired but picked me up at the B&B I was staying at and we promptly got lost driving around an Aberdeen suburb looking for a fish restaurant. It was a tremendous opportunity, and I gave one of my best job talks ever. My better half couldn’t imagine living and being happy in Aberdeen (which she found too grey), and so I went to Gent and commuted for six hard year.
I got to know Stephen more personally only relatively recently in July 2016 when I arrived early for my first visit to Sydney because I was co-organizing the Hume Society event at the university. Stephen and Helen lived right near campus and I was invited to their lovely home filled with art. That Brexit Summer my family moved to London, and since we saw each other quite regularly on their visits to Belsize.
I knew Stephen primarily as a mild-mannered gentleman scholar who was touchingly in love with Helen whose achievements and impact he admired and he was incredibly proud of their daughter, Cressida (an accomplished Hume scholar in addition to her many other literary talents). In all my interactions with him you could tell he felt incredibly blessed with his life, his travels with Helen, and his career.
In formal retirement he has been incredibly productive, including a major series of enormous works, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210-1685; The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760; The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1739-1841; Civilization and the Culture of Science: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1795-1935 all with Oxford University Press. This was a man who didn’t only write about the work ethic, but also instantiated it. Over lunch at the Wells, he admitted that this huge project was a way to stay busy while satisfying his curiosity. A ‘bit like my blogging’ I said, and we both laughed heartily.
I sometimes envied Stephen not so much for his ability to complete books, but for his un-flappable nature and his general sunny disposition. However, this did not prevent him from having strong opinions. One of his last academic interventions was a polemical review in TLS. And while I increasingly believe that most polemics are unfruitful (and so unnecessary), his review had gratified my greatly (about that, perhaps, some other time). We discussed it, and Stephen told me with a relish wholly unexpected by me of how he was galvanized into writing it, and he was not at all perturbed even pleased by the polemical reactions it generated. I saw a glimpse of more fiery elements in him previously unknown to me. I will miss him, his mentorship, and our regular meals and talks. I have made a mental note to read his The Failures of Philosophy later this Fall.
On Tuesday classes start, including a new lecture course that I should be preparing. My occupational physician taught me that I should not compare my health on a day to day basis, but over longer stretches. Compared to this day two years ago and even last year, I am massively better despite being down from the glorious symptom-free heights of June. I am a bit nervous about teaching two new courses in a rather full load of three courses (one semester long, two half-semesters) this Fall. I am a bit sad that these diaries have not concluded yet.
But I visited campus earlier in the week. I saw all the students on orientation boasting to each other in their nervousness; met with the tutors, Anna and Aris, who will co-teach one of my lecture courses, and had dinner with my exciting new colleague, Kevin Pham. Come Tuesday I start my lecture on Hobbes’s social contract with a discussion of excerpts from Plato’s Crito and Manegold’s Ad Gebehardum liber, and I am so excited to invite my students along on intellectual discovery to explore jointly the roots and nature of concepts that are authoritative today. Maybe the connections we’ll forge will develop in enduring conversations between us or among them, or play an unexpected role in their lives.
- This first appeared at: <On How to Teach Old Books, Burnyeat vs Strauss, Part II (substack.com)>a reader supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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