The Popper papers, 3/6/1993 (original) (raw)
letter from Andrew Malcolm to Professor Sir Karl Popper, C.H., 3rd June 1993
From: Andrew Malcolm, XXXXX, Brighton
To: Professor Sir Karl Popper
136 Welcomes Road,
Kenley,
Surrey CR8 5HH
3rd June 1993
Dear Professor Popper,
I thought I should write to keep you informed of my (lack of) progress with Making Names.
I and my girlfriend Liz had a wonderful fortnight in the USA, which included trips through New England to Cape Cod and Boston. My New York search for a literary agent, however, was all uphill, with the assumption generally being that since I did not have a 'proper' UK agent or publisher I do not have a hope. Most people in the trade there seem to equate philosophy with tarot-reading or psychotherapy, while the philosophy shelves in bookshops seem to be giving way to the mysterious classification 'New Age'. Heigh-ho.
Back here, I'm afraid Laurence Marks has lost interest in his "Who runs OUP?" article and looks set to retire in the forthcoming wave of redundancies at The Observer. This has led me to try one or two other people in the literary journalism world (e.g. the Times supplements) to see if they might be interested in (your views of) Making Names, but again I have found myself banging my shins against Oxford stumbling blocks: the TES review editor "had her fingers burnt" by Bill Noble's review of 25/9/92, while the TLS philosophy editor turns out to be none other than Galen Strawson, one of the Oxford men peripherally involved in my action.
To return to your charge of 'apparent moral relativism', I am wondering whether you mean by this phrase (a) the position that, crudely, in the end there is nothing to choose between different societies' different codes of behaviour, that they are merely alternative systems of promoting social order, (b) such an assumption's more extreme apparent logical conclusion, which you attribute to Heraclitus, that there is no absolute Good or Evil at all, but only the endlessly conflicting ways of the world and of mankind, some sort of 'Might is Right' principle, or (c) something more subtle than either of these.
Leaving aside what I myself believe, either in 1985 or now, I would have thought Making Names leaves no room at all for (a), with Cause explicitly exposing the inconsistency of Effect's claimed liberalism on page 226&ff. As said, I would have thought the book's atheistic answer to (b), however unsatisfactory, is in the exchanges from page 245, although I guess you may find these undermined by Cause's general pre-Electra cynicism. If, as I imagine, your charge is somewhat subtler, I would be grateful for your elaboration. By the way, on the subject of Heracliteanism, what do you and your scientist friends make of these stories of the discovery of red mercury? Do you believe them to be a hoax, or is Pandora's box now at last well and truly open?
Finally, have you or Hr. Siebeck reached any verdict on Eva Schiffer's translation? I am sure she is anxious to hear.
With best regards, Andrew Malcolm
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