Sign in

Ade Webb

@adewebb.bsky.social
461 followers 266 following 1.2K posts

Philosophy PhD Student (fictionalism, hermeneutics, interpretation theory) & PTA @Exeter University, UK. Tech chairman. Former FTSE 250 board director. AI ethics speaker. Jazz guitarist, cyclist, dad, husband, animal lover. Living (almost) off grid

PostsRepliesMedia
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 11h
Try as I might, I can’t reconcile the headline and first sentence here
Cookie notice that says: We Care About Your Privacy
We and our 1030 partner (s) store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device.
Selecting Accept all enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. Selecting Reject all or withdrawing your consent will disable them. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
50 years after Foucault published Discipline and Punish, Pete Hegseth is going to bring the execution back outside the prison walls. He won’t read Foucault’s archaeology of why they went inside but let’s hope history repeats. #philsky #foucault
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Bloody capacitors.
A bunch of Mullard ceramic capacitors attacking a courgette/zuchini
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
One of those evenings when I’ve followed up listening to Finian by Kneecap with Skylark by Ella. Life’s rich pastie.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
If I see another AI generated infographic I’m going to twist someone’s semantic vector…
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I have new dependants! Meet Perla and Gerti (mum and daughter) #bunnies
Two white rabbits. Looking v cute.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Visiting the harrowing Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, I found myself marking Trump’s US on this chart.
An infographic mapping pathways for peace vs pathways for violence in societies
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Rwanda has rebuilt the nation with vision, competence and unity. An inspiring week here.
Photo of Kigali car free zone
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Barkis AI is willing’ to please.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Pure coincidence (but quite a coincidence) that two of my last six audiobooks are based structurally on long poems: Pale Fire (poem actually in the book) & All We Can Know (poem not in book but its narrative centre). Glad to have my Lolita-centric view of Nabokov’s immense talents expanded recently
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
My wife sometimes speaks as if it is wrong to have three different sizes of guitar in the bedroom 🧐
100
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I’ve never seen #cloudporn like that above the village of Beer, Devon last night. It was like folds in thin paper.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Coal Train by Hugh Masekela live is one of my Desert Island discs and it’s somehow nice that it isn’t on any streaming service. Only the B side of the 12” single of Lady from 1985. Astonishing track. (I have an mp3 recorded direct from vinyl complete with crackles!)
Shows the rear sleeve of Lady by Hugh Masekela.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Trevor Horn, Anton Corbijn, Propaganda. The Nine Lives of Doctor Mabuse. Why don’t we return to the age of sleeves like this. #ztt #mabuse #vinyl
Back cover of Propaganda 12” single from 1984. Text: discovery of truth is prevented most effectively,
not by the false
appearance things present and which mislead into
error, not directly by
weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion,
by
prejudice, which as a pseudo a priori stands in the path of truth and is then like a contrary wind driving a ship away from land, so that sail and
rudder labour in vain."
dance and crime: the nine lives of dr. mabuse,
presented, prevented and
presumed by propaganda. i the third and fourth side
1. DAS TESTAMENTS DES MABUSE
2. FEMME FATALE
(The Woman With The Orchid) •
3. (the ninth life of...) •
DR. MABUSE
"every
general truth is
related to
specific truths as gold is to silver, inasmuch as it can be converted into a considerable number of specitic
truths which follow from it in the same way as a gold coin can be converted into small change."
Propaganda: noise and girls come out to play. NOISE: ralf dörper andreas thein. GIRLS : claudia brüchen suzanne freytag. BEHIND THE SCENES: (come out to...): michael mertens.
BEHIND THE
SCREENS: (....play) : michael wertz.
TREVOR HORN produced the nine lives of Dr Mabuse. ANTON
photo-
graphed the group and painted the hand. XL and ZTT made up the sleeve. the first and second side are obtainable as ZAS 2: a seven inch. the first, second, third and fourth side of the story make up number two in zang tuum tumb's bold action series. "Viva muchos anos!" recorded at sarm,
west eleven. dr.
mabuse visual: ZIS 107. help from arthur schopenhauer and maurice ravel, trom a to b; aphorism to bolero, artist to beekeeper.
ZTT Records,
The ZTT Building,
8-10 Basing St. London West Eleven.
Enclose s.a.e. and hope. The next propaganda single is Duel
"not the least of the torments which plague our existence is the constant pressure of time, which never lets us so much as draw
but
pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip. it ceases to persecute only him it has delivered over to boredom.
020
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Compare and contrast: Mama Don’t by JJ Cale Memphis Soul Stew by King Curtis Self referential instrument adjoining songs maybe? Another others? @winn-on-health.bsky.social
100
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Sellars is a challenging read at the best of times but when he sprinkles his signposting with beauties like this, I can’t help but love him more #philsky
Photo of a page of Wilfrid Sellars writing that starts a paragraph with “Let me return to beating the neighbouring bushes”
101
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Pistachios are effectively the reverse of oysters in terms of edibility
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
This morning at the eye clinic #pareidolia
Two pareidolic stones. One missing an eye with a startled expression. The other with a closed eye exhibiting some frustration
0281
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The three HappyMakers
A Gibson 335, a Baldwin Virginian and a Yamaha Revstar Pro. All guitars
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
A wedge of metaphor #philsky
SELLARS -EMPIRICISM & THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
TOON- MIND AS METAPHOR
Yablo - Aboutness
AUSTIN - HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS
MENTAL FICTIONALISM
Edited by Tamás Demeter, T. Parent, and Adam Toon
RICOEUR
Hermeneutics
Wilfrid Sellars  - Science, Perception and Reality
Paul Ricoeur - Interpretation Theory
Paul Ricoeur- The Rule of Metaphor
061
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Solipsist breaks up with their partner: “It’s not me, it’s me”
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
This is the best cover of a philosophy book ever. Challenge me! @philsky01.bsky.social
Cover of Stephen Yablo’s ‘Aboutness’ - a real bird looks at an arrangement of leaves that is a trompe l’oiel of another bird
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
@dryohanjohn.bsky.social Quick question… do you know my friend Dimitris Pinotsis by any chance? I’ve worked with him a number of times via City University in London. Looks like you’re in v similar fields.
110
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I’m going to lobby for a new word to describe the nice feeling you get when receiving some good for free: gratisfaction. I thank you.
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
I’ve waited 19 long years for this moment… #arcticmonkeys #favouriteworstnightmare
Hotel room 505. (Arctic Monkeys track of same name release 2007)
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Much as I favour animatronics and puppetry over CGI in films, sometimes we have to recall the past without rise tinted spectacles #topshambreweryloowallpaper
Picture shows a film character sat astride a hopelessly unrealistic dinosaur
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
On a brief and much needed weekend in Mallorca, I cycled this before breakfast this morning. Cap de Formentor lighthouse and back. I’ve lived 43 years with type 1 diabetes. A condition manageable with diet, exercise and now tech. Not one to fear or lose agency over.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Anyone who has seen the film ‘The Death of Stalin’ can sense what might have been here 😆
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
The pedant in me raging at the poor spacing adopted by a company apparently invested in anti-nominative determinism. Kern your A and P correctly or get out of town!
A company sign that reads ‘This is the Space’
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Every time a waiter/ress says “be careful… the plate is hot”, I have to touch it to find out *how* hot. Today is the first time I’ve regretted this trait. Ouch.
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Looming forward to Trump’s Truth Social post that sets out in plain language the difference between the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception.
110
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
🙌🏻
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Worried that as my internet connection is Starlink, my EV charging system is now getting Musk-esque delusions of domination… 🤨
A Myenergi Zappi with a message ‘searching for slaves’
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
The word ‘whithersoever’ is radically under-utilised in these straitened times of ours.
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Worth a small dunk into your bank account folks. Black House Pictures is the perfect small film company and deserves a bit crowd fund support.
011
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
For all the GPS, AI, mapping, monitoring hype, my phone still assumes I’m driving down the railway tracks a few times a week.
Handcar
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Just played a gig ‘with food’. 90% of the food was cheese. I love cheese but jeez… I’m going to dream tonight 🧀
100
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
If I am ever stressed in future, I’m going to think of Chester the Shiba Inu who I met while skiing last week. The embodiment of calm chill. The face… 🥹
040
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
10.43am and I’m already cleaning Wyman’s slum of possibles
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Church of Molt. Slightly upgraded Searlian Chinese rooms feeding ticker tape into each other and causing everyone to spontaneously wet their pants. #philsky
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
I read Hans Jonas’ 1992 speech ‘Philosophy at the End of the Century’ on the recommendation of my prof. Glad I did. The final pages are prescient for the early 90s. #philsky www.jstor.org/stable/40971...
Perhaps it will not be a matter of planning at all but of improvisations which the widely growing emergency will cause humanity's inventive genius to devise from occasion to occasion. l do not know-and probably no one does. Only the great imperative is overwhelmingly clear to me along with the fact that the human mind alone, the great creator of the danger, can be the potential rescuer from it. No rescuer god will relieve it of this duty, which its position in the order of things places upon it.

From the abyss that is now becoming visible there arise questions we have scarcely ever asked before. Here, in conclusion, a sampling of them. Can nature continue to tolerate the human mind, which it created from its own substance? Must it eliminate the human mind because it finds that mind too destructive of the natural order? Or can the mind ultimately make itself tolerable for nature once it has become aware that it is intolerable? Is peace possible when war was the primeval law governing the relationship between the two? Or was tragedy perhaps the original purpose behind the birth of mind? Is the drama, in spite of its tragic ending, worth performing for the sake of the unfolding of the plot? And how can we make the drama worthwhile in itself, regardless of the ending? How much of its worthwhileness can we sacrifice in order to attempt to avert catastrophe? Is it permissible for us to be inhumane so that humans can continue to live on Earth?
And so on.
All of these are questions of the type Wittgenstein forbade us to ask, since there can be no verifiable answers to them. But they help us to recognize the existing situation, which forces these questions upon us, and to see that it is ourselves to whom these questions are addressed
011
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
The quality of handouts in the philosophy department’s leaflet rack has undergone a significant improvement
A very large leaf in a leaflet rack
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Bold statement #russianblue
Russian Blue cat sat presumptively on turntable lid
040
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Today is the 107th anniversary of America’s most bizarre non-war time loss of life. The Boston Molasses flood. A 30ft wave of 2million gallons of molasses from a ruptured tank in the dock claimed 21 lives and injured 150. #darktide
000
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Trying hard to figure how to rescue this very small 747 stuck in a tree on Clapham Common. #smallfaraway
110
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
The Axe
Seagull over the River Axe at sunset
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
2x recent highs to report: ‘Grilled Cheese’ the short film I was Exec Producer for last year is shortlisted down to the last 14 from 500 entries for the London Lift Off film festival + the short outro I composed and performed (just one minute!) is out on Spotify 😃. open.spotify.com/album/5JT83x...
open.spotify.com
Grilled Cheese (Original Motion Picture, Outro)
030
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Bloody happy to end the year net negative thanks to our #solar. Consumption includes all EV travel, heat pumps, bore hole water pumps, sewage plant and all the usual household electrics. May to September skew the year massively in our favour.
010
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
What are the chances of three philosophers all called Adrian all in the same small room of a dozen people all at the same time? With the wonderful Dr Adrian Currie (Exeter) and Dr Adrian Alsmith (KCL) celebrating a triple A rating
020
Ade Webb @adewebb.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Just a few weeks to go and despite very little sunshine in recent weeks, I think we will comfortably achieve another net negative year for power, heating, hot water and EV. #solar #sunpoweredhouse
030