Sean Walsh

The fact that Robert Jenrick couldn't define English identity in a soundbite doesn't mean he doesn't know what it is, argues philosopher Sean Walsh in the Daily Sceptic.

The sweeping House of Commons reforms proposed by Green MP Ellie Chowns are evidence that the Mrs Dutt-Pauker types have moved from Peter Simple's columns into public life. We're in for a bumpy ride, says Sean Walsh.

The Tory election campaign is like one of those England batting collapses – paradoxically both distressing and enjoyable in equal measure, says Sean Walsh. The problem is the party has forgotten how to be conservative.

by Sean Walsh Though I walk in the valley of death I shall fear no evil, for my double jab and face mask comfort mePsalm 23:4; Covid Version For a Catholic the Mass is the “source and summit” of the Christian life. It culminates in a divine speech act, mediated via the priest in loco Christi, which brings us into the Real Presence of Our Lord via the Eucharistic celebration. This Sunday, as last Sunday, congregants will be thanking the Lord, in His presence. And as ever, He will be joyful in receipt of that gratitude, even though most of those offering it will be hiding their face from Him, in an act of cowardice which is, at best, a bit rude. Our Lord offered Himself up to the rest of us in act of supreme sacrifice… the members of my parish, encouraged by the bishops, will lower the mask for about three seconds: enough time to swallow the Host, cover the face again, and then re-engage with the secular protocols of social distancing. Because they are worried that in the presence of Jesus Christ himself, they might catch a virus. How has it come to pass that the Government’s mechanisms of fear have been able to reach into the soul of the most observant – and most of my...

Governments should never be in thrall to scientists by Sean Walsh The philosopher of science (and incorrigible mischief maker) Paul Feyerabend once wrote this: Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is comparable with a humanitarian outlook.Against Method Feyerabend claims in that book that the separation of science and state is at least as important as that of Church and state. The problem with SAGE, he’d argue, is not that it is composed of rubbish scientists (although he’d certainly have thought that), but that it exists at all. When you throw epidemiologists, computer modellers, behavioural ‘nudge’ scientists, immunologists, sociologists and (for all I know) tarot card readers into a Government briefing room and instruct them to find a consensus then you are making the mistake of believing that ‘consensus’ is the friend of knowledge, when in fact it is usually an enemy. Those who would advocate the inclusion of, for example, Sunetra Gupta onto this group miss this point: her best work will be done outside the Lockdown Establishment. Were Professor Gupta to be invited to...

by Sean Walsh In 1986 the philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote an article called 'On Bullshit' in which he pointed out that there is an epistemological and therefore morally significant difference between lying and faking. When you lie, he argued, you inadvertently disclose that you have some concern for the truth. To fake, on the other hand, is to reach for whatever bullshit you can spout in service of your desired end. This lack of concern for truth is what makes the chancer worse than the liar. The faker, having lost any interest in separating the true from the false, will inevitably end up deceiving himself. He has no skin in the game. The liar is at least theoretically capable of being brought to book; the faker is beyond help. His world is fundamentally distorted. The histrionic response to COVID-19 has shown that we are presided over by a Lockdown Sanhedrin, the High Priests of which are all fakers. These are not dispassionate and objective observers of “the science”, because science, properly done, eschews fakery. They are people trapped in the addiction of authoritarianism. And self-deception is a driver of that pathology. There is a bewildering disparity between the ‘data’ they offer us and the homily they compose from it. When you acquire the habit of lying to yourself you end...