Iran UK Ebrahim/Simon Channel 4's 121

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2007-03-06T11:37:00.001Z

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Submit

2006-12-01T15:53:00.000Z

Yesterday I submitted the manuscript for my new book. I say new, but I have been working on it since 1998 - so it feels old already. But it is finished and now it is out of my hands. One of my brothers is a photographer and he has done a very rough 'rough' for the image to go on the jacket of the book.

The image is of six books. But instead of the cover of the spine showing it is the other side of the spine - just the paper.

A lot of my book is about reading, about how reading philosophy can be very demanding, and how there are books that are not over even when you have finished reading them. So the image of the worn and well-read pages of a book is nice for me.

But there is going to be a secret (I mean secret in the sense that nothing on the book will show this - anyone can know). The six books on the cover will be my own copies of the six books that I expore in some detail in my book.

I have put my brothers 'rough' up at the top so you can see it. The books in this picture are not my books, and the typography is obviously very rough indeed. (Including a typo: my brother typed 'Phenomonology' and it should be 'Phenomenology')

Since he should be credited for his work wherever it appears, his name is Hugo Glendinning.

Who Knows?

2006-10-27T13:52:00.000+01:00

There is an experience which goes like this: You are walking in a beautiful place, you are with friends and the whole thing is wonderful. If somone had arranged this for you you would want to thank them for the gift. However, in this case one can say confidently that no human 'gave' you anything - and yet one still wants to say 'thanks'.

Another example: You are looking for your keys. You are 100% sure that you left them in a certain room and you are searching in the room. In your mind you imagine the keys sitting somewhere there to be found or seen. And you might imagine your future seen in this way too.

Classically, it is called one's 'fate'.

In may ways we are inclined to conceive the world as a gift or the future as seen, when there is no human giver or seer.

In my own view the future is not the future unless it is radically beyond the present or any anticipation in the present.

Tehran, London, or Vienna

2006-09-18T13:03:00.000+01:00

Dear Simon,

Today is the second day that I am living in Tehran while my wife is in London. She is a British council scholar and she has just started her second master degree in Brunel University, west of London. This is the other adventurous aspect of our plan that I had not mentioned before.

Considering the short distance from Vienna to London, we decided to take advantages of both programs. Now she is in London and I am in Tehran waiting for my Austrian visa to leave here for Vienna, while my course started in September 11th.

Unfortunately, I do not know how long it takes to my Austrian visa be issued, so today I applied for UK visa.

I don't know where I will be in the coming week; Tehran, London, or Vienna.

Here, It is pretty popular that religious people obviously say that "God knows this". Economists name it the stochastic term of the life. What do you name it?

In the comming post I am going to review our last months of life.

Raamsar

2006-09-06T16:00:00.000+01:00

Simon,

Traveling to a quiet place, even for a short period, is really refreshing. For inhabitants of metropolitans such as London and Tehran, it seems essential. This summer more than every other time we were eager to visit beautiful nature of Iran; because we may not have this chance for a while. Unfortunately preparation for leaving is really a time taking process and it took all the time we were supposed to allocate to traveling and even blogging.

My wife and I are very interested in traveling specially backpacking. In the last few summers we underwent plenty of such travels. In this summer we did not have any, we could only take a formal trip to Raamsar, one of the most beautiful cities in the north of Iran. It is so beautiful that is named as "the bride of northern Iran's cities". It is placed between the Alborz Mountains and the Caspian Sea and it has exclusive types of planets.

France

2006-08-14T13:28:00.000+01:00

I am sorry not to have replied for so long. I have been in France for my summer holiday. We went - the whole family - to a little village in the South, in an area called Provence. Beautiful and quiet. And hot. There was no internet or TV or radio in the house - so the only communication with the world was a newspaper from the UK every morning.

While we were away there was of course the developing news from the Middle East. Poor Lebanon. Everyday I would read every inch of the news. The newspaper I read is called the Guardian. It is traditionally on the 'left' in British politics and I liked the way it covered the events in the Middle East and the international politics that was caught up with it.

In general it would have been easier to have been a Frenchman than an Englishman through all of this. On the other hand, I found myself unable to form an opinion on the matter which I felt was unchallengeable. Each day I would read articles in the paper and the various points of view expressed. And I would think of some of the views that they were right. But each day something different! I am glad the UN have reached some kind of agreement and fingers crossed now that it works.

Performane of Tact

2006-07-13T17:02:00.000+01:00

Congratulation!

I hope you have good times in your new house.

I think your tact in estimating another buyer's bid price from the agent's words has a good performane in this transaction. It is what a philosopher can do.

Winning Bid

2006-07-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

That was a great analysis of the situation I was in.

So operating (nearly) blindly we phoned in our bid as did the other party in the game - and the seller was able to chose the one he liked best.

I put it like this because the variables included more than price. Who could move fastest, who was in the best position to complete the deal and not pull out, etc. So price was not everything here. Or at least the calculation of 'best offer' included factors that went beyond the best bid price.

Our strategy was, however, quite simple: calculate a bid price that was both within our means and was also in accord with our hopes for doing work on the house if we got it. We looked at the maximum we could pay in those conditions and made a guess about the 'opposition'.

One thing we think we knew (and I think we were right) is that the opposition had originally made a bid lower than our own. The agent had told us: 'we have received another offer'; not 'we have received a higher offer'. So we guessed that they had less to play with than we had and that we did not have to go as high as our maximum.

Eventually we decided on a number just a little bit more than the original asking price.

And we got it! So now we have to get everything else organised - schools for the children being uppermost in our minds. Now we have to wait and see if the whole thing unravels (our buyer pulling out for example) or whether by the end of the summer we will be moving into a new home. Fingers crossed.

Simon

Hot Weather

2006-07-13T15:04:00.000+01:00

I am wondering if you have bougth the new house or not. I hope so! Now that the weather is getting hot, moving to the country seems more desirable.

Here in Tehran we are tolerating a really hot weather. Some days it goes up to 45 degrees centigrade. I have not ever undergo such hot days in Tehran. Although living as well as working in such a hot day seems difficult, expecting moderate weather in the near future turn it easier.

Another upwarding trend that is controversial these days in Iran is the increasing prices. In the last two decades our economy has undergone more than 15% inflation rate each year. But, the prices trend seems to be still higher than that this year. Not having hope to any decline in this trend makes it really unbearable specially for the people in the lowest income groups. The people who was the majority in voting for a government with new ideas in managing the country in the last year's presidential election.

Economist Role!!!

2006-07-05T19:10:00.000+01:00

What an excitement game you are playing!

As you know not only philosopher but also economists can do nothing special in this case unless they have access to some asymmetric information about the rival's reservation price, and this information is useful only if there is not considerable delay to write a post!!! … sorry

What economists do in such a complicated case is observing the game and analyzing the results; but after being known of the result!!!

To be more serious, I want to talk about the structure of this game or the role of the agent in that. The agent can design the game in variety of methods. As a case in point, he can set a multi-period auction; each buyer offers his bid price and the other buyers can offer a higher price. The game goes on by the time that nobody offers a higher price. In this method each buyer has more information about other buyer's decisions during the game. In other word, he knows the rivals' willingness to pay in each stage. Therefore he can decide on whether he offers a higher bid or not based on real information.

In the game you are playing, the agent has restricted the game to one period. Besides, you do not have any information about your rival's preferences. What is the result of this game? I think in this case the transaction will take place in a price higher than the last case. In other words, to won the game each family may offer a price more than his willingness to pay.

The method that the agent selects will influence on the games benefits. A specific method may have considerable benefits for the seller while another method may satisfy the buyer. The contract between the agent and the other players also may affect the agent's strategy (even in favor of one side).

It seems necessary that some kinds of regulation be imposed based on which the agent acts fairly. Economists may have a role in designing such regulations.

The Game of Buying

2006-06-28T10:14:00.000+01:00

We have found a house that we would like to buy. It is in a very pretty village about 40 km from London. Unfortunately, we are not the only people who would like to buy the house. And now the trouble begins. We made an offer - and the agent for the sellers said: a little more please! So we made a new offer at a higher price. And then the agent said: we have received another offer from another family.

The agent has now decided that both families wishing to buy the house must make there 'best and final' offer by 10.00am on Thursday morning. So now we have to work out what the right offer for us is. We do not want to miss this one - but we also cannot spend too much on buying it or we will not be able to do anthing to it when we get it. And it only has three small bedrooms - so we need money in hand to convert the existing garage into a new addition to the house that will give us enough space for our family.

It is not an easy calculation. If we go too low we risk losing the house and spending more time and money trying to find an alternative (and there is very little on the market). If we go too high we risk over-reaching ourselves and buying at a price that will not reflect the value of the property.

What would an economist do?!!! A philosopher is no good at this one!

Moving Challenges

2006-06-26T11:05:00.000+01:00

Deciding to move to a new place is really a strange idea. Even though it seems that people always are trying to find peace and calmness in their life, they suddenly decide to turn all the quiet they have provided into a challenging situation by moving to a new place. It is what I’m really looking for.

The first challenge is preparation for communicating with other people. Moving to a new territory in some ways is similar to starting a new life. In the new community you should learn a lot of things to communicate with people in a usual way. You should learn how to speak their language, how to start a conversation, which rules are implemented in deferent organizations, which customs they have, what is considered as a formal behavior and….

The amount of time and effort you should pay for adjustment depends on the difference between two communities. Although moving from London to the country is not involved with significant adjustment cost, it will provide your family with some instructive especially for children. It is while living in the country in my opinion has more benefits than its costs.

In addition to social life aspects, there are some career challenges in relation with movement. For me the main reason is to undergo a new experience in a new academic environment. I think it would be a terrific idea to repeat the experience of being a student.

Moving

2006-06-20T15:46:00.000+01:00

Like you my family are considering moving from where we are at the moment - but not nearly so far! We are hoping to sell our place in London and move to the country. We have finally had an offer made on the house - but now there doesn't seem to be much for sale in the areas we might hope to move to outside London. Ahhh!

The whole culture of house-buying and house-selling in Britain today is mad. There are endless TV programmes advising you on who to make the most money out of a sale and giving guidance on what to do to spend the least possible when you buy. Mad!

And then there are more endless programmes which tell you how best to decorate your house once you have it. I'm sure it will all come to Iran sometime soon if it is not there now. I'm sure it will already have hit Vienna...

Vienna Buildings

2006-06-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

Dear Simon,

I'm so interested to visit the house that Wittgenstein built in Vienna. I'll be in Vienna in September(I hope so), so I'll visit the house and write about it.

Your post about the wittgenstein house reminded me a special characteristic that made a pleasant feeling about the Vienna buildings for me; The equal height and harmony in the buildings of city. While you are walking in the city almost all the buildings are in the same height. In addision a kind of harmony you can see in all the buildings;In most parts of city buildings are designed traditionally, while the modern buildings are completely seperated from the first group.

For example city center, Ring, is the traditional part of city. Well known opera of Vienna, Musems, palaces and all the historical buildings are placed in the ring. Whatever you go out of the city center you can see more modern building. And International city center where the UN is placed is the most modern part of Vienna.

The House that Wittgenstein Built

2006-06-07T14:01:00.000+01:00

Here is a picture of the house that Wittgenstein built in Vienna for his sister.

A website I found adds these details: 'A unique example of formal radicalism in Viennese architecture is the Wittgenstein House. Planned by one of Adolf Loos's students Paul Engelmann and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the house was built in 1926-28. In 1975 it was purchased by the Bulgarian Embassy which turned it into a cultural institute. In the course of renovation in the 1970s, the house underwent decisive changes: a big lecture hall was built in the basement which is today used for cultural events.'

Although it is chillingly austere it is also, I think, the expression of a profound aesthetic sensibility.

2006-06-06T16:15:00.000+01:00

Hey - great to have you back. I was getting kinda lonely in here! And what an adventure you are thinking about. Vienna! I have only been to Vienna once. Very clean (toooo clean this Londoner felt) and 'civilised' - but what is lurking beneath that....

One of my all time favourite philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein, hails from Vienna. I will not go into philosophy again this time though. What I would like to mention is the house that Wittgenstein built for his sister in the 1920's. It is an amazing construction - high European Modernism: no decoration or embellishment at all.

I will try to find an image and post it on the blog.

Simon

Sorry for Long Time Absence

2006-06-03T05:52:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately I couldn't update the weblog for long time despite the fact that my life is changing considerably and I have a lot to write about. I think in the next chapter of my life I will have more time for reading, thinking and writing so I'll write more, and more interesting.

As you know I've been working in the field of Economics for about five years in an academic environment while my formal education in Economics is only two years (I have a BS. degree in engineering and a MA in Scio-Economic Systems Eng.) so I decided to continue my education in the field of Economics.

In addition to regular apply for the Mphil program in Institute for Advance Studies (IHS) where I'm going to study there I had to pass entrance examinations and interview to be admitted in the program.

Fortunately I was admitted to the program and I think it would be the start of some changes in my life. Preparation for the examinations, my trip to beautiful city of Vienna where IHS is placed and specially the visa problem took all my time so I could not write for a while but I have a lot in my last posts.

In the coming posts, I am going to write about my trip to Vienna, IHS and transition from teaching to studying.

Good days and Bad

2006-05-19T10:34:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday I received the referees reports from the publishing company who have taken the manuscript of my new book. I started the book in about 1999 and it has mutated a number of times since then. At one point it got so long I had to divide it into two - one short and one long book. The short one is rather 'light' and will be accessible to quite a general readership, the longer one is more difficult and more specialised. But Tuesday was a bad day because two of the four reports the publishers commissioned were very critical indeed. I was devastated. They didn't seem to like what I had done at all - and I was worried the whole thing was going to collapse. But over the next day it became clear to me that they were seeing the text as trying to do something it was not trying to do - and it is true: if it had been trying to do what they thought it was doing it would be a failure. Fortunately, my publisher agreed that the criticism seemed ill-judged and he is not going to abandon the project. On the other hand, the fact that the readers had so misunderstood what I was up to suggests that I have a lot of work to do explaining what I am doing. Well that's ok. So I'm now going back over the whole manuscript - and hopefully it is not going to require too much root and branch change to get it in better shape. But I was rocked for two days, and slept badly as a result. I feel much better today.

Conference and Football

2006-05-15T10:34:00.000+01:00

I had a very busy week last week with commitments each night. That did not make my family happy. To really make it worse I was invited to give a paper at a conference in Manchester - some 200 miles away - on Saturday. I was the first to give a paper - at 10.00 in the morning, so I had to travel up by train on Friday night to be there and ready. The paper seemd to go down well - although I think I had enjoyed rather too much hopitality from the hosts the evening before...

Half-way though the day's events it became clear that the football cup final, the FA Cup, between Liverpool and West Ham was not only on the TV in the next room but was turning into a classic game. The participants at the conference took a vote and on a fairly sizable majority decided to watch the rest of the game and delay the final paper. The man who was to give the paper seemed happy at the time. But I suspect he would have been less happy had he known that half the audience would simply go home after the football. I don't think the organiser was very happy either.

On the other hand: it was a brilliant football match, and it was great fun watching it with a big crowd of fellow philosophers. Their language lost some of its analytic rigour at various points...

Are you still taking part in this project? I haven't heard from you in a while.

Posh Dinner

2006-05-09T10:54:00.000+01:00

I had dinner last night at one of London's old 'gentlemen's' clubs - called the Reform Club. In its origins and heyday it was a meeting place for people from all political parties who were in favour of reforming the electoral system to allow votes for women. As you can imagine the originally all male club was the first to admit women as full members. (Women had always been allowed in as guests there - which was not true for all such clubs, some of which were until very recently strictly men only.)

These days you only have to be in favour of reform in a very formal sense to join. As I understand it, at the end of the interview for candidate members they ask if you are in favour of reform - and you have to say yes.

The building is very grand, located in a very grand road in London called Pall Mall. (The correct pronunciation is - I think - to rhyme both words with the 'al' sound in Alan not the 'all' sound in Paul. However Pall Mall runs parallel to a road called simply 'The Mall' and there is dispute over the correct pronunciation of that. Rather posh people call it the 'The Maul'...) Anyway, you enter this great big building into an enormous atrium hall. There is a sort of common room/library where you can sit and read the papers with a drink while you wait for friends and dinner. A couple of old guys were writing letters at a table and another very old guy was asleep in the corner.

We went to dinner in a dining room that seemed to belong to the 1970's, or earlier - there was a menu option called 'the trolley' which members seem to like (something is served off a wooden trolley, a sort of table on wheels...). The food was ok if rather 'school-dinner'ish.

The occasion for my visit to this odd place was business. I am the Director of the Forum for European Philosophy and we are currently looking for private donations to help fund our activities. Last night was a meeting with a potential donor. I quite liked him. A sort of self-made man who didn't suffer fools gladly. He said that nearly everything written in political science could be swept away without it making any difference to the world. Well, it is true that there is much too much written by academics these days which is splitting hairs and has no obvious point. I called it 'landfill' - which he liked. Maybe he will be a donor for the Forum. We'll see.

Birthday Boy

2006-05-05T15:57:00.000+01:00

It is my youngest son's first birthday today. He has been very ill this year and there were times when we just did not know how he was going to get better.

At Christmas - in fact on Christmas day - he was sick (on his grandmother, ahem) and then was sick after every feed for over a month. We took him to hospital three times - but each time they said: it is a virus (then a secondary and then a tertiary infection). But his weight went down and down. He is 75th percentile in length and went down to 2nd percentile in weight. Terrible. Then one night he was sick again and my partner said enough is enough. She took him to hospital where they finally admitted him for observation.

Without major tests they judged that he had a 'reflux' problem (food coming back up from the stomach to the throat) and probably an intolerance to milk proteins. So we got medicine and removed all dairy products from his diet - and slowly slowly he has been getting better. Two days ago he seemed to me really 'better'. He is now, I would say, better. He has got better.

And so today we will have cake (no milk, no butter, no eggs!) and ONE candle to blow out.

My lovely son Albert.

Desert

2006-04-27T14:40:00.000+01:00

Your mention of deserts reminded me of a strange text (brilliant too I think) by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in which he is discussing the right of strangers to visit the society of others: a right to hospitality, or as Kant puts it, negatively, 'the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility when he arrives on someone else's territory'. (I suddenly wonder: where are we now, here?). Anyway, Kant says this:

'All men are entitled to present themselves in the society of others by virtue of their right to communal possession of the earth's surface. Since the earth is a globe, they cannot disperse over an infinite area, but must tolerate one another's company. And no one originally has any greater right than anyone else to occupy any portion of the earth. The community of man is divided by uninhabitable parts of the earth's surface such as oceans and deserts, but even then the ship and the camel (the ship of the desert) makes it possible for them to approach their fellows over these ownerless tracts, and to utilize as a means of social intercourse that right to the earth's surface which the human race shares in common.'

There are three things that strike me here.

First, that the deserts are not regarded as part of man's 'communal possession' even if they are within the boundary of a state (and the same would be true of the 'waters' (sea-spaces) that states may regard as 'within' their territory). The 'communal possession' is only that part of the earth's surface which human beings inhabit non-nomadically. Imagine them all scattered in various concentrations over the globe: wherever feet touch the surface in the mode of settled 'dwelling there' or settled 'being at home', wherever there is what Kant calls 'residence' on some part of the surface of the earth, there we can outline the space on the globe of that communal possession for which any man should be granted the right to visit 'so long as he behaves in a peaceable manner in the place he happens to be'.

Second, what is common here is strictly, literally, superficial: the surface. Everything above the surface; institutions, architecture, construction, in general 'culture' and hence also, today more than ever, what you aptly called 'the scientific environment' (and, as you suggest, everything that 'takes place' in this superficial place - or does not 'take place' there - depends on this non-natural environment) is not naturally common property and there are (we know) different regimes of 'rights of access' here. What is naturally common is only the (non-nomadically habitable) natural surface.

Third, doesn't this all suggest that Kant does not consider that the right of hospitality might be rooted in something like a nomadic right (something I think that Islam might more confidently acknowledge)? And is that right so superficial?

Desert

2006-04-27T11:23:00.000+01:00

Although I've always been considering Iran's climate as one of the most varied ones in the world, your post about the changing weather in a specific place during a day really surprised me.

A specific aspect of Iran's climate is its dry deserts which I think European people are not so familiar with. Two vast deserts in my country are "Dasht-e-Kavir" and "Kavir-e-Lout" that are gray colored in the middle and eastern parts of Iran's map I've already uploaded.

Here are some pictures of deserts in Iran:

(Sourse: CHN photo agency)

Scientific Environment

2006-04-27T09:57:00.000+01:00

My mind has been engaged with your post about politics of friendship more than the others. I'm not only talking about the interesting notes you had written in "Politics of Friendship", but also - and specially- a reality behind your notes, your books and all the scientific pieces that are being published day to day. What I'm more concerned with in this matter is a considerable difference between our two countries in the scientific environment.

What turns a country into a pleasant and pioneer environment in science - I think- depends on the institutions involved in this matter.

The first and the most important institution is the degree of interrelation between the academicians in a society. Universities, seminars, journals and books are the most dominant institutions in this respect. The last two are effective tools for academicians to get related to each other. On the other hand, universities can provide some academic relation between the two generations of professors and their students. These two, altogether cause a more permanent growth in science. The reading and writing cycles you mentioned are important indices expressing an active scientific environment in your society - or at least in your mind as an academician of that society.

Although the existence of these foundations is a necessary condition for making a sustainable and continuous path in the science, it is not sufficient. While universities, journals and books can be seen in a lot of countries, they don't have the same performance. For instant, there is a significant difference between them in the number of published scientific pieces as an index for performance of scientists. This is what can be considered as a major distinction among countries in their scientific.

Another institution in this respect is the interrelation between the academic institutions and the society as a whole. Generally speaking, academic organizations are researching to find some methods to facilitate the people's life, so people are willing to finance their activities. Supposing that government as a representative is responsible for mastering this relation, the government policies will turn into an important factor in the scientific institutions in a country. In this point any inefficiency in government systems will affect the science environment.

In my country not only the interrelation among academicians is not so effectual, but also there is not any firm government policy toward improvement of academics systems. On the other hand, although our society is paying the price of establishing and maintaining these institutions in the country, the payoffs are insignificant.

Back to Work

2006-04-24T12:34:00.000+01:00

I came into the LSE today for the start of term. I confess that it is a relief to be relieved of looking after the children at home...

At British universities most of the Summer term is taken up with examinations so my teaching duties are light. I have to take some revision classes - and mark exam scripts later, but that is about all.

Somehow time always gets filled up and one finds one still has 'no time'.

At the moment I am looking through applications for a new degree programme which is starting up next year called 'European Identities'. One of the basic questions for that degree is: Where does Europe end? This is a particularly sharp issue at the moment because of the rapid expnasion of the European Union, and the 'Turkey issue' is massive in that. I have always wanted to hold apart questions like 'What is Europe?' from questions concerning membership of the European Union - but that can never be a simple distinction and I find it all extremely hard to think through well. Do you have a view as to whether it would be either good or right for Turkey to join the European Union?

Politics of Friendship

2006-04-20T09:36:00.000+01:00

The new term starts on Monday and I have returned to my office after the break. When I got back from the Peak District I had 173 emails to attend to. By 'attend to' I mean, mainly, 'delete'. So it did not take too long.

I have recently finished two book projects. One on 'The Idea of Continental Philosophy' which will be coming out with Edinburgh University Press in the next few months and a much larger project called 'The Movement of Phenomenology' which (I hope) Routledge will publish later in the year.

Having come to the end of a period of writing I am giving myself some time for reading. I have not read much in the area of political philosophy before, so I thought I should do something about that - espeically now I am in a European Institute and not just a philosophy department.

To make a start I started close to places I already am. I have read alot by the Algerian born French thinker Jacques Derrida and began by reading his last book 'Rogues' which is about so-called 'rogue states'. It is a brilliant critique of the concept - and the political reality that comes with it.

That book contained a number of references to other books which I then followed up - the most interesting of which was to an earlier book, also by Derrida, called 'Politics of Friendship'. Why talk of politics in this context? Because the friendship relation has, forever, been conceived as a relation between equals and so has served in the European tradition as a kind of model for democracy.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the way it mapped out the tendency, at least in Europe, to identify 'the friend' with 'the brother' - the brother here being construed non-naturally of course, but the supposedly natural relation is not utterly negligible: there is a strong impulse to suppose (political) 'brothers' are connected to each other by some kind of quasi-natural tie (of blood, of nation, of people).

Derrida looked at how the friend, and the politics of friendship (democracy) has then been conceived as a distinctively 'virile' concern, the concern of (virtuous) men (the concern of brothers and so not sisters and not women in general, and so not between women and men either). He wanted to ask whether one could think an equality and a friendship outside that 'androcentric' order.

At the end of the book there is a passing reference to 'Moslem brothers' which suggested that a comparable structure belongs to traditions other than the Greco-Christian one Derrida is focusing on in his book - but (wisely no doubt) he did not try to insist on that.

Another notable aspect of the book was the way it engaged with a text which represents or expresses a deep current of European political thinking: one which sees the concept of the political in terms of the friend/enemy contrast. In the European tradition that is in play there (no one will be suprised to see that we are still right in this today too, the signs are everywhere), this contrast is peculiarly fundamental because the 'enemy' is defined as a state (always a state) with whom the 'real possibility' of 'actual conflict' (ie killing, death) arises.

Derrida tries to show that this friend/enemy contrast is internal to and also emerges out of the conception of the friend as the brother. The brother, that is, is also 'the other' with whom the possibility of enmity is 'real'. (How many stories of brothers killing brothers are there in the world?)

Again the crucial question is whether we can retain a politics of friendship beyond the classical embedding of it within a 'fraternal' relation. Crucial, that is, if we are still democrats - committed to equality and the finitude of every institution.

He finishes the book with a revision of a classical or canonical saying attributed (in a way mistakenly) to Aristotle (we can come back to Aristotle another time - his great text 'Politics' is, I understand, not in the Islamic archive): 'Oh my friends, there is no friend.'

Derrida closes his book with a call (a hailing, a conjuration even) to a democracy to come:

'Oh my democractic friends...'

Talking about the weather

2006-04-15T17:35:00.000+01:00

Sorry not to have been able to get online.

I have spent a week away with my family in an area in the middle of England called the Peak District.

I will tell you more about it when I have a chance to write a proper post - but I wanted to make a quick comparison with the weather variation in Iran.

As you know the British are famous for talking endlessly about the weather. There may be many reasons for this but one is this: we have weather (not a climate). And one of the features of our holiday in the Peak District was the variation in the weather. In fact, on one day we had all four seasons: a spring morning turned windy and autumnal, then wintry snow and hail followed by a warm and summery afternoon. Ah that's British weather for you.

I'll write again soon.

The North of Iran

2006-04-06T11:00:00.000+01:00

Before writing about my trip, it would be useful to have a look to Iran's climate. Maybe I could share my sense better, in this way.

Iran is mostly considered as an arid or semiarid country, but because of its size and variety of altitude, it undergoes great extremes of climates. It can be experienced all four season in Iran at the same time. For instance in these days the weather in northwestern regions is really cold ,while a hot weather can be experienced in the southern sections and temperate climate can be seen in many other places. Anyway, the mildest weather and greenest land can be seen in the North of Iran, where is surrounded by Caspian sea from the north and Alborz mountains from the south.

Tehran is situated below the Alborz mountains and pretty close to the North,where we spent our holiday. To arrive there, we drove more than five hours along the mountains. The mountains that are rather drain in Tehran side, snow covered overhead and completely mild and green in the other side.

Some pictures have reminded in my mind in this trip; windy seaside with a lot of people walking there ( eager but no dare to swim due to the cold weather) , jungle with fresh and shiny colors and newly budded trees, some long waterfalls in the jungle that I never forget them, small villages and their beautiful houses, dense farms, ranches and gardens along the way in various colors, fires that I made for barbecued chicken , specially the ones made in the jungle, ... , and some crowded roads particularly in some large cities.

Not only were people completely fresh and merry, but also the nature was clean, fresh and shining. The harmony of new year celebration with nature rebirth could be seen everywhere .

London Cycles

2006-04-02T09:08:00.000+01:00

Welcome back to the Blog!

I look forward to hearing what you did on your break. Term finished last week at the LSE as well, so now I am writing this from home instead of from my office at work.

I would usually be surrounded by my three noisy children but today there are five children here because friends of ours came over with their two children for dinner yesterday and stayed for the night.

They are quite old friends and used to live close to us here in London. Last year they moved out - as many people do - to a small village in the countryside. I envy them their peace and quiet - they envy me life in the fast lane of London.

This is not a tradition or a custom but there is something deeply ritualistic about the cycles of life in and around London. For many generations, young people have come to London to start their adult careers. Many will meet and marry and start a family. The very wealthy can afford to stay in London and make use of very expensive private schools, but most families start to think about moving out of London when their eldest children are approaching their tenth birthday - and so are coming to the end of Primary School and their parents are thinking about what to do next. As I say, many move out to villages and small towns in the countryside near London.

As they move out so new people move in. London cycles itself, absorbing and then expelling from itself what lets it work.

At present there is a question whether Anglo-Saxon white people are moving in and out in the same ritual pattern as previously or whether London is moving into a new - and very traditional and cyclical - stage of immigrant re-configuration. I said - uncomfortably - 'Anglo-Saxon white' - because the new immigrants are not only from the Moslem and particularly the Arab world (though a fair proportion are, and there are many more Arabic-style Moslem dress-codes and norms on show in London today, an Arabification that I know some of the Pakistani's round here who have been in London a lot longer are having to come to terms with) or from the West Indies (very few arrive now and some older folk go back to the islands of their birth or leave to suburban districts - in West London where I live there are fewer black families than there were fifteen years ago) but from the new member states of the European Union, especially Poland.

It is funny seeing shops owned by Pakistani families putting up signs saying the are 'specialists in Polish food'. This is London.

Simon

Another Santa claus

2006-03-29T20:43:00.000+01:00

Pretty long time, no touch. I hope you and your family, specially your little baby are well.
Your willingness to Norouz encourages me to elaborate another feature of our new year celebration, Haji Firouz.
Neglecting some little differences, the role of "Santa claus" in your culture is played by " Haji Firouz" in our society. Haji Firouz, that has a meaning like "the lucky person", appears in red hat and clothes and a black face during the last days of the year everywhere in the city.
He sings a particular merry song while dancing and playing tambourine or TOMBACK; a Persian instrument like the one side narrow drum which is played by hand as a reminder of coming spring. Sometimes there are a group of people doing the perforce.
The most distinguishable difference between these two characters is related to new year presents. Santa claus shares his happiness with children by giving them some presents while Haji Firouz shares his happiness with people by singing, dancing and making all the people happy. People give them some money as a present, instead. This way they can be considered the traders of happiness.
I will write more about the interesting trip we had the first week of the year, in the coming post.

The Return of the New

2006-03-23T11:07:00.000Z

I like the sound of your Spring Holiday more than our New Year. The thing about January 1st is that it is still in the middle of our winter - so the only thing that is new is the date. When Spring comes (as it is struggling to do as I write) there really is a sense of relief - of having once more got through the short days and dark afternoons.

It's funny you mention that you tidy your house in perparation for the arrival of the new day. We have something similar. It is called 'spring cleaning'. It is rather less formalised - and it doesn't even happen every Spring. The idea is to have a real clear-out, not just a bit of a tidy. I don't think we are going to have a spring clean in our house this year. We have a ten month old baby and keeping the house tidy is work enough.

Last night I went out to what we risk calling a 'reading group'. A group of people (more or less connected) meet together at the house of one of our number to discuss a book we are all supposed to have read. We have cheese and wine too. Last night we discussed a book called 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell. It is composed of six separate but more or less connected stories. The connections are somewhat more metaphysical than, for example, the fact that people go in for Spring Cleaning all over the globe - but that could have served equally well I guess because the most fundamental connection was a thought of 'the eternal return' in the German thinker Nietzsche.

Many Happy Returns of the New.

Simon

New Year Celebration

2006-03-18T12:57:00.000Z

Hello Simon,

Regarding the anonymous proper comment, I am going to introduce a part of Iranians life that has changed the feature of my country these days, the new year celebration, Noruz.

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranians New Year Celebration, NORUZ, begins at the first day of spring, 20th March. Noruz that means “The New Day” is the most important national celebration in Iran.

A few days before New Year, people always clean and rearrange their homes and parents often provide their children with new clothes. Based on some traditions, they germinate seeds as a sign of renewal. They also provide some red fish, some beautiful flowers particularly tulip and hyacinth for Noruz.

Like your first days of the year, Iranians spend one or two weeks on vacation during the period. There are a lot of other traditions related to Noruz that I will introduce them later if you'd like.

My wife and I have planned to spend our first week of the year traveling; this is what some Iranians do. We are going to leave today.

I might not be able to update my posts during this week regularly.

I wish the best for you in these nice days of spring.

Bye,

Quantitative Method

2006-03-17T13:34:00.000Z

I fear I have some sympathy with the anonymous comment that remarked on the abstraction of the blog so far...

However, before we leave the issues you raise, I want to come back to something you mentioned at the start: whether we were far apart on the use of quantitative methods in the human sciences.

My own view is that quantitative methods are internal to human sciences and so there is no question of getting along without them. My guess is that you think the same.

However, I would not be a philosopher if I did not think that there were serious limits to science, all science but especially those sciences called 'human'.

For some time there has been a question whether there are any domains that are in principle out of reach of science. Ethics and Aesthetics are obvious candidates. But I would want to make a more radical step and say generally that the question of What it means to be a human being (the 'essence' of the human) is a fundamentally non-scientific question. So even though human (and biological) sciences can make correct reports on human life, and on human language etc. - and even on human activities like buying and selling cars - I do not think they can provide answers on questions concerning the significance, for example, the difference between human beings and other animals has for us. That, as one of my favourtie philosophers puts it, is a matter more for contemplation than observation (which doesn't mean we can't criticise what significance we have made of that difference or how we have interpreted it).

So our disagreement (if there is one) would not be over the use of quantitative methods in human science but, perhaps, either (i) the value of such inquiry or (b) the limits of that inquiry.

Best wishes,

Simon

Econometrics

2006-03-15T15:54:00.000Z

Hello Simon,

The topic you have started is very interesting for me. Maybe, you and I are completely different in our thought style about quantitative methods in Social Science, anyway; preceding the topic will determine it.

I would like to talk about your third and fourth paragraph, first. I agree with you in that the best predictor of the weather tomorrow is today's and also the best predictor of the price of a share in the stock market is the last period's price and finally, the idea is accepted anywhere you are considering a system as the summation of completely uncertain random shocks (or events in your expression). In such circumstances, the most complete information for t+1 period is the one of period t.

And about your second paragraph; I'm going to restate it in my own words: as you know, econometricians are concerned with estimating an equation that has two terms; a deterministic term and a stochastic one. maybe it is the most controversial matter in our talk. They estimate the deterministic section and use that as a foundation for policy analysis and forecasting. Considering a deterministic section in econometrics models, stems from the belief in the idea of existance of a firm relation in a limited duration, at least. What should be considered in the application of the relation, is the assumptions under which the relation has been estimated. … Totally, this is a method that works.

I'm looking forward to hearing about any comments in this matter.

And the two determined subjects that I'm interested or obsessed with these days, are as following:
1- The stochastic process of the stock market prices.
2- Demand for new cars.
I think these two example are proper to go on the topics around them if you'd like.

I'm so interested to know about the subject of your cources or researches over there.

Econometrics

2006-03-13T10:16:00.000Z

Ebrahim, I think I am one of the few people working at the LSE who does not regard what they do as 'science', whether social science or human science. My training is in philosophy - and most of my work has a concern with what happens 'when science becomes our passion' (as the German thinker Heidegger put it). There is a kind of mythology and idolatry surrounding the idea of science - particularly in the West - that is problematic. On the other hand, I would not want to reject science either.

Before I went to university I worked in an economic forecasting centre in London. I was just an assistant but I worked with economists who were making econometric models of the UK economy. They would make equations which made a good fit with past data and then project them forward on the basis of general assumptions about the economy in the future. I have no idea how accurate they were - but they made lots of money selling their forecasts (predictions) to companies over here.

There was an academic (a Russian specialist) at my college where I was a student who was interviewed on the radio about what people wear to work. He said he knew exactly what he would wear: the same as yesterday!

As far as I know that expectation remains the most powerful predictor in almost every sector of life. The best weather forecast for today, for example, is nearly always: the same as yesterday.

Of course one thing that cannot account for is: events. But then neither can econometrics...

What are you working on at the moment?

Simon

Ebrahim says

2006-03-11T15:05:00.000Z

Hi simon,

It is really pleasant for me to share some pieces of information about a typical life in my country and listen to yours about the life style in London.

I'm so surprised about your workplace(London School of Economics). LSE is a known name for me ; sometimes I trace the Economics cource materials there,particurlarly Mathematical Economics and Econometrics, to compare it with my cources here and it has always been useful.

I work in the Economics department of Institute for Management and Planning Studies (IMPS) , an educational and research Institute, that is placed in Tehran.

Simon Says

2006-03-08T15:19:00.000Z

Hello, Ebrahim.

This is where I am:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/mapsAndDirections/findingYourWayAroundLSE.htm

I am in building 'J' - Cowdray House. It is the "European Institute" and I am the Fellow in European Philosophy.

Speak to you soon.

Simon

Welcome

2006-03-03T20:52:00.000Z

Welcome to Channel 4's 121. 121 is a place for alternative perspectives on countries in and out of the news, an opportunity to go beyond the tired old tales and get a fresh story from everyday individuals. It's based around international dialogues (using ‘blog’ technology) between paired individuals with similar concerns or occupations from the UK and the other country in question.