A two-state solution in Israel/Palestine

Let's just try to think of things anew. I'll work in dialog form. The following is a discussion between guy-in-quote-marks and guy-without-quote-marks. Old friends.

What is the most plausible path to peace?

"What are we talking about now, Ukraine?"

Not today. I'm thinking of Israel, or Palestine, or whatever neutral name we might want to give to the territory between Lebanon and Egypt on one axis, between the Jordan River and the Sea on the other.

"Let's call it X, as in algebra."

Okay. What is the most plausible path to peace for X?

"A two-state solution."

Really? Won't two states in that enclosed space be constantly at war -- or at war until one conquered the other, whereafter the warfare could be reclassified as civil unrest, but would continue unabated?

"Very likely."

So: the problem I take it is the violence, not the classification.

"The point, though, is that peace for X cannot really be considered in isolation from the broader problem of peace for the whole globe, and THAT allows for only one even semi-plausible model. There will not cease to be nation-states. At no time in the rest of this century or, I suppose, in the century after that will it cease to be the case that the institution of nationality-based sovereignty will dominate maps of the earth. Any plausible quest for peace must be a peace GIVEN that."

An arguable point, my friend. Indeed, it is a point with which you would have argued perhaps even heatedly not long ago.

"That I acknowledge."

But even if we grant it: should that just lead us to defeatism and quietism with regard to peace? After all, the world of distinct nationality-based sovereigns is one with which we are all too familiar, and hardly a peaceful place. And X is not likely to become an exception simply because diplomatic skill manages to jam two of them into the space between the river and the sea.

"But Israel and Egypt have been at peace since the Camp David Accord went into effect between them back in the 1970s."

Yes. But those are two distinct nation-states, which simply adjusted their border. Neither was created in those accords. Consider a suburban homeowner. It may be a nuisance for John to settle matters with his neighbor Grant, if they have been arguing over exactly where John's property ends and Grant's begins. But it is rather different if John has to make peace by recognizing that Grant and his family are the proper owners of a wing of the house John and his family have regarded for decades as their home. Not really the same thing at all.

"I concede the difference. Still, the process is the progress."

I hate it when you get terse.

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere. At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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