A former colleague of mine used to say that central to doing philosophy is the practice of reading slowly. I recalled the saying later when I came across this passage from Ludwig Wittgenstein: “This is how philosophers should greet each other: ‘Take your time!’” Taking one’s time, lingering, what some philosophers call “tarrying,” is crucial to doing philosophy well.
Why is this? There are several reasons. Philosophy is supposed, among other things, to go deeper than appearances, to see what’s behind or beneath them. Relatedly, philosophy is supposed to be critical, not accepting what immediately presents itself but instead asking whether what presents itself is actually true or just or morally decent. Yet again, philosophy often involves following the thought of other philosophers, thought that itself can be elusive. (Reader-friendliness, unfortunately, is rarely counted among the virtues of philosophy.)
Reuben and Peggy’s jobs are not top secret in the way top secret jobs usually are. They don’t have guns, for example – and the grey conference table they sit at is much the same as you’d find in any office in the UK. They even have LinkedIn profiles that tell you their job titles. But this is where things get odd: search the name of the company they work for – a name I have agreed not to print – and you’ll find little information about the work Reuben and Peggy do. You could click through every page on their company’s website and leave with no idea that it creates the most beloved crisp flavours in the world.
Reuben and Peggy are not their real names. Reuben is a snacks development manager and Peggy is a marketer, and they work for a “seasoning house”, a company that manufactures flavourings for crisps.
While some cases can be solved easily, computer scientists struggled for nearly half a century to develop a comprehensive understanding of the problem. Now, in a series of breakthroughs over the past few years, they have firmly established exactly how complex that problem can get.
In “The Infinite Loop / El lazo infinito,” Oneyda González asks readers to listen and to think. This translated collection gracefully intertwines Spanish and English, creating an infinite loop of dialogues between languages, pages, people, and words.