Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 18/08/2026It was Nietzsche, wasn’t it. He said a lot of very stupid obviously false things and that was one. 030
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 31/07/2026Yes. I fear we are living in a time when these beliefs that are a normal and timeless symptom of being a grumpy old man (I remember Jerry Cohen riffing on this theme amusingly in his talk on conservativism) are simply true. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 15/07/2026I remember my sometimes colleague Nick Zangwill railing against alphabetical privilege. 020
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Do you think it makes sense to talk about forgiving the dead? 100
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Only it’s more like someone invents a fancy high tech racket that can play the game by itself without the assistance of a silly human. 030
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 12/06/2026Analysis Reviews: Replies to my Critics academic.oup.com/analysis/adv...academic.oup.comREPLIES TO MY CRITICSI am grateful to Analysis Reviews, in the persons of Max and, latterly, Antonella, for hosting this symposium on my book, to Teemu for pitching and oversee 031
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 12/06/2026Of course when our university email accounts was the only way most of us knew how to email the HoD was boss of such things. Now it is all staff WhatsApp groups and the boss is not in charge. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 06/06/2026Sure. If AI can do that our profession faces obsolescence. Along with a thousand others. Young people like you and me 40 years ago who love the life of the mind will have to forget about anyone paying them a salary to live it. Or do almost anything else. If that is the future it is truly bleak. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 05/06/2026It’s real enough to make this argument invalid. Besides which 2 to be credible must be read as stating an ideal. Without a ‘should’, read descriptively, it is obviously false. A lot of philosophy is a lot less original than it thinks it is. I have my doubts about 1 too. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 04/06/2026As it stands you seem to be reasoning from ‘is’ to ‘ought’. Should 2 have the word ‘should’ is it? 100
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 03/06/2026The world of Clinton, Major, Gorbachev or the world of Johnson, Trump, Musk and Putin? A preference for the former doesn’t seem so crazy to me. Best of all in the 1990s Reform was not a thing. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 25/05/2026I don’t use AI for feedback. I don’t think AI can have virtues. 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 18/05/2026There are a lot of things going badly wrong lately that have nothing to do with research. Many universities are now on course to become cheap degree factories where the luxury of time for research is a distant memory. 020
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 13/05/2026This is horrible. Nottingham is a lovely department (I visited there six months ago) with some terrific philosophers. bsky.app/profile/crai... 042
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 29/04/2026I have a colleague with back trouble often stands during seminars. Nobody objects or minds in the least. Why would they? 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 27/04/2026A world in which money no longer matters would be a world where literally the only reason anyone has to give a toss what Elon Musk has to say on any subject has ceased to apply. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 27/04/2026Someone should get that man a hat. He’ll catch his death of cold. 100
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 26/04/2026An Inspector Calls. The Third Man. Kind Hearts and Coronets. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 26/04/2026Other fave Brit films with 6+ viewings: Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Tunes of Glory. L&D Colonel Blimp. Sorry, too tech stupid make gif. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 26/04/2026I have watched a lot of films more than six times. They certainly include that one - my favourite British film. I think we have discovered this commonality here before. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 26/04/2026Mirabeau was an aristocrat. Danton, Robespierre and Lenin were bourgeois. Pol Pot’s family were wealthy farmers. And burning stuff down has a chequered track record as these and other precedents rather eloquently testify. 100
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 18/04/2026I would like to write more about Burke’s metaethics. Someone needs to put on a Burke conference somewhere nice and invite us both to speak at it. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 18/04/2026Exactly what was agreed in 2014. A referendum at most once in a generation. An agreement on which Scotnats, bad losers that they are, instantly reneged. www.theguardian.com/politics/201...theguardian.comScottish referendum: yes and no agree it's a once-in-a-lifetime voteBoth sides of the campaign gave made it clear they will abide by the result, as political fallout from reneging would be significant 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 13/04/2026But we WAS a defender of Conservatism. Rather a brilliant one! 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 13/04/2026What exactly appalled him? From what I know of Cohen, he wasn’t a guy to let ideological differences stop him being generous and respectful in engaging with writers like e.g. Hayek or Nozick. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 10/04/2026According to today’s episode of Have I Got News for You, no one on Gen Z understands the expression ‘hanky panky’ 100
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 08/04/2026I want to read that! (And I’m on leave so maybe I even will!) 120
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 04/04/2026Who is ‘we’? If we are we the good guys, who reject retributive punishment and don't believe in the death penalty, then, trivially, yes. Otherwise probably not. There are a lot of retributivists on the left. Always were. Just ask my friend M. Robespierre. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 01/04/2026彈琴 泠泠七弦上， 靜聽松風寒； 古調雖自愛， 今人多不彈。 劉長卿 Zither music Notes rising from seven strings clear And serene as a cold wind among pine trees. Like a much loved old song That no one plays any more. Liu Changqing 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 01/04/2026They should really change the name to the BS rankings. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 31/03/2026And hardly good publicity for BBC. I will bet you a lot of money likes of GB News/Murdoch press milking it for all it’s worth to talk up a narrative of how the BBC is a hotbed of paedos and pervs. BBC is damned if they do damned if they don’t position when it comes to his much they cover it. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 31/03/2026Not odd. I’d never heard of the guy either. But we’re not in the radio 2 demographic. For people who are he is very far from unknown. As high profile as Huw Edwards say. And it’s not only the bbc treating it as big story. I really don’t think is a sinister plot to distract us from stuff. 110
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 30/03/2026Sitting at home nursing bruised rib and feeling sorry for myself I was cheered up by this nice review of my little book by one of the world's coolest philosophers. link.springer.com/article/10.1...link.springer.comJames Lenman, The Possibility of Moral Community: Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024. Hardback, ISBN: 9780198885085. 188 pages - Ethical Theory and Moral PracticeEthical Theory and Moral Practice - 081
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 22/03/2026As I recall that exchange is mainly valuable as a handy resource for anyone looking to give an ostensively definition of the phrase ‘more heat than light’. Though in places the irascibility is so ott as ti be funny. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 21/03/2026We don’t need Neil to tell us. It’s been obvious for ages to anyone who looks at it it’s a 24/7 Party Political Broadcast in shameless breach of the law on political advertising. No wonder they poll so well. 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 10/03/2026I very tentatively think ordinary bad people are people who want good things we all want like money or status or sex and contrive to lose the moral plot in how they go about getting them while evil people are people who want things that are not good, revelling perhaps in cruelty for cruelty’s sake. 010
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 08/03/2026No one forgets that who has read the great short horror story The Quest for Blank Claveringi by Patricia Highsmith. 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 25/02/2026I do like the idea that sex and me are contemporaries. 020
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 20/02/2026I do feel a little sorry for the management of the Woking Pizza Express. I suspect this whole narrative has brought them a lot of attention they could very happily have done without. 000
Jimmy Lenman (吉明） @lenmanj.bsky.social · 17/02/2026Hmm. I remember university. We did anomalous monism. And the private language argument. And the missing shade of blue. I don’t remember doing who is what to who. Maybe I was off that week… 130
