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“... know the answer to a difficulty. His discussions are informed by a sense that what he is saying may be overthrown or overtaken by other views. It is a great relief from the remorsely demonstrative tone that grips the work of analytical philosophers, including some of us who in principle know better. The unifying theme, as Nagel puts it at the beginning, is ...”

“... seldom canvassed), out of many possibilities that spring to mind two should be noticed: first, we may conceive of a language – as it might be Russian, or even American English – that is less worldly-wise than British English; and secondly we may conceive of, and even think that we register around us, a linguistic ...”

“... social forces and ideology. Mothers who know but fear standard canons of emotion and behaviour may see that the ways they are supposed to feel and act are not ordained by human nature. And if they don’t obey either the old rules of family, or whatever is the official psycho-paediatric rule of the day, they need not feel quite as guilty as they are ...”

“... on what he regards as the abuse of old words. Professional linguists take a calmer view, and may even go beyond the limits of mere description and argue that change can tend to renovation rather than decadence. The State of the Language is a large and defeatingly miscellaneous collection which represents these points of view and a great many more ...”

“... in the region, in part because of Obama’s capitulation to Netanyahu. Whatever willingness there may have been among Arab regimes to join Israel and the US in an anti-Iran coalition, it will be weakened by the fall of Mubarak. Iran’s influence in the region will be strengthened. The enmity of most Arab regimes towards Iran is not shared by their ...”

“... is possessed not by a set of competing Western states, but by one state alone. Other countries may possess elements of the technology, and many states are more warlike than America; but none possesses anything like the ability of the US to integrate these elements (including Intelligence) into an effective whole, and to combine them with weight of ...”

“... have liked to remake the Conservative Party in his own image, as she remade it in hers. Theresa May simply wanted to be as formidable as Thatcher had been, a steely woman in a world of wobbly men. Even Gordon Brown, with his ceaseless personal ambition, believed that politicians only get a few chances to make a lasting difference and he longed to take the ...”

“... varies with historical conditions. What is necessary for freedom and what is sufficient for it may reasonably and honourably be understood in different terms in different historical circumstances. It is natural to put the thought like this. But how can we speak in this way of what is necessary or sufficient at different times for this one ...”

“... with an ample display in the Oxford Book of 20th-century Verse. This posthumous fame, however, may prove to be of a kind Davies would not have welcomed. He was a strange person, and one whose interest in publicity blew hot and cold. This book is indeed the work of a natural, if by that we may mean someone who took to ...”

“... He is a believer in romantic duality, which affirms a principle of division, whereby someone may be two people, and which is also related, structurally and historically, to a contrasting principle of multiplicity, whereby someone, very often some author, may be more than two. Both principles are evident in this ...”

“... 8 May, Sunderland. A massive new feeding frenzy. The Telegraph has got its hands on a computer disc of our unexpurgated expenses claims and has begun publishing highlights. Page after unedifying page . . . The damage is incalculable. Not just to us, but to the entire parliamentary system. We are sinking in a great swamp of derision and loathing ...”

“... had a refreshing sense of socialism. For him, it had almost no fixed sense at all. ‘A society may be fully and truly socialist and yet be led by an absolute ruler or be organised in the most democratic of all possible ways; it may be aristocratic or proletarian; it may be a theocracy ...”

“... expectations. For all that the Labour Party has tried to exploit Remainer discontent with the May government’s push for a clean Brexit, a powerful undertow of Lexiteering persists. The post-2008 crisis of capitalism has delivered a propitious conjuncture: the left’s supplanting of New Labour and its engagement with an electorate that seems willing to ...”

“... hand, that where we take ourselves to have different and perhaps more refined conceptions, we may be either deluded or not as far apart as we might like to believe. In other words, comparing ourselves to the Greeks may have the sobering effect of showing us that we have not advanced all that much, and that we might do ...”

“... are found the next day; they put bridles in the mouths of sleeping men, though a cunning man may in retaliation capture an equine witch by flinging a bridle over her head and forcing the bit between her teeth. A man may also subdue a mare demon by having her shod: when she returns to human form, she has horseshoes on ...”