Intermezzo 2

Doc, I have not settled on "a philosophy" yet, and think I never will, because, like Wittgenstein, I feel that philosophical systems contain too many 'pictures that hold us captive'. On the contrary, I am comfortable with his view that philosophy can be therapeutic : a cure 'against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language' (Philosophical Investigations 109). Following that view, there is no point in choosing a particular system within philosophy. What we can do is to go on practicing philosophy, precisely to avoid being 'held captive' by any system. This was probably also the view of Socrates, but certainly not that of Plato. And, as you know, I am no friend of Plato.

You touch on many different aspects in your last comment. I will try to group them under three headings :

• Technical aspects.
• Case studies (the Unabomber and others).
• The "Trust vs. verification" question.

Each of the following three posts will deal with a single one of these aspects. Again, please wait for all of them to be there, so that you can appropriately target your comments.