Jo Wolff @JoWolffBSG Twitter profile

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

In sending a letter with a minor flaw in and expecting it to be rejected, the Prime Minister is confusing the EU with an application for Universal Credit.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

How to keep academics happy: 1 Time for research 2 Teaching load that stimulates without being overwhelming 3 Modest pay increments 4 Fair pension 5 Occasional word of praise or encouragement 6 A say in things that concern them Er ... that’s it.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

People complaining about Starmer writing in the Telegraph. Would it be such a bad thing if thousands of Telegraph readers find themselves thinking ‘You know what, this man makes more sense than the prime minister.’?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Look, we democratically voted for a triangle with internal angles of 200 degrees. I really don't understand why the government doesn't just get on and deliver it. They must be corrupt, with vested interests in 180 degrees.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

It's simple really. If you have an inferiority complex because you're not a mathematician, you're an analytic philosopher, but if you have an inferiority complex because you're not a poet, you're a continental philosopher.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Non-controversial opinion. If sociology hadn’t been the butt of ignorant jokes for the last 6 decades (academics as guilty as anyone) there’s every chance that more people would understand what’s going on in the world.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

"Food banks are an indictment of society" Err ... no #r4today they are an indictment of this government. Society is doing what it can to keep people from starving, the government seems rather less interested.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

The exam question I never had the courage to set: “Emotion is equally as valid as a form of knowledge as cognition.” How do you feel about this statement?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Superb use of Rawlsian original position-type reasoning. (Pedants - please note presence of word ‘type’ )

Read Let This Radicalize You

@JoshuaPHilll

4 years

Every single white person needs to watch this today.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

So I wrote the textbook that many of those undergrad political philosophy students use, and I don't understand this question.

Timoteo Casson 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇺🇸

@t_casson

5 years

@jessphillips For example, I'll give you a question any undergrad politics student can answer, but you can't: Do you think Rawls' Original Position is a liberal solution to the conundrum about inequality brought up in Locke's 2 Treatises of Government? If you can't answer even that you're done

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Like many people of Jewish descent of my age, my grandparents were murdered by fascists. So yes, I am anti-fascist. And if this means no more trips to Trumps’ USA that’s absolutely fine with me.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

My father was born 90 years ago yesterday. Here’s a fragment he wrote about what it was like being a Jewish child in Nazi Germany.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Lovely passage by Marcus Aurelius, quoted by ⁦ @patchurchland ⁩

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

Not sure whether I’m watching the funeral of the Queen or the funeral of the UK.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Buckingham Palace banned ethnic minorities from office roles, papers reveal

Buckingham Palace banned ethnic minorities from office roles, papers reveal

Exclusive: Documents also shed light on Queen’s ongoing exemption from race and sex discrimination laws

www.theguardian.com

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

The U.K. looks like what happens when the people in charge have lived their lives by cutting long term investment to falsely inflate current year (paper) profits to maximise their bonuses.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Intro Political Philosophy. Politics department: Here’s the 18 most important political philosophers. Read for next week and compare and contrast Philosophy department: Here’s two paragraphs from Locke on property. Take three years to show why he is wrong (Ducks for cover.)

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

An official announcement. Jonathan Wolff becomes the inaugural Alfred Landecker Professor heading research on values for a better democratic future | Blavatnik School of Government

Jonathan Wolff becomes the inaugural Alfred Landecker Professor, heading research on values for a...

A new academic programme and professorship designed to investigate the persecution and protection of minorities in the UK and Europe

www.bsg.ox.ac.uk

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

John Rawls was born 100 years ago today. A Theory of Justice, his first book, was published 50 years ago this year. So he was 50 when he published it? Slacker.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 months

Delighted and honoured to have been elected President of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, in succession to Onora O’Neill. You know that thing about being humbled by the list before you. Well. ...

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

My father and his sister with their parents. A few years later they became unaccompanied child refugees.

The Independent

@Independent

3 years

Unaccompanied child refugees will no longer be given sanctuary in the UK, the immigration minister has said

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

‘We should invest in science education.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Sorry, can’t answer that. We’ve closed the Philosophy Department, you see.’

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

So begins the dizzy adventure of not being part of one of the three major trading powers in the world.

The Times and The Sunday Times

@thetimes

4 years

Brussels will threaten to block the City of London’s access to European markets in an opening salvo of post-Brexit trade talks in the new year

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Candidate for worst word in English language: sanction. Meaning both condone and punish.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Did you know that 0.00001% of the world’s population consume 99.99% of all Philosophy papers?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

I was looking for an agreement And I found an agreement And heaven knows I’m miserable now

Iain Duncan Smith MP

@MPIainDS

4 years

Whilst the UK wants to have a good trade relationship with the EU as a sovereign state, the EU has different ideas. They want our money and they want to stop us being a competitor. The Withdrawal Agreement (WA) we signed last year sadly helps them. (1/3)

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Piaget, looking for the REF submit button.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Oswald Mosley wrote a short book called Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered which is largely about how to dismantle democracy from the inside. Undermine independence of courts, BBC, media, universities, local government, House of Lords. Centralise all power to the party.

The Secret Barrister

@BarristerSecret

4 years

A legal system in which judges are “barred” from making decisions that frustrate politicians is no legal system at all.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

The idea that one person or one group is entirely responsible for the plight we are in regarding Brexit shows a shocking ignorance of social causation. Unless you’re blaming Boris Johnson of course.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Proof-reading some text on democracy and wondering if it's still true: "Governments known to allow the people to starve will not get re-elected."

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Let Brexit be a warning to anyone writing a dissertation. Don’t put off all the difficult stuff until the last few months.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

Not really understanding this backlash against universities. We take your moody teenagers off your hands and return them as adults who can converse on a variety of topics.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Getting a bit tired of living through a world historic event, tbh.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

I had no idea that dystopia would be accompanied by so much bird song.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Applause please. I logged into Manuscript Central without having to reset my password.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Hadn’t seen this photo before. My father and Aunt with the Christian woman who took them in and became their legal guardian as refugees from Nazi Germany.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

I’m so naive. I thought EU procurement rules meant that it was impossible to award contracts in this lean, agile, fashion.

Robert Peston

@Peston

5 years

How can a contract worth £13.8m to run goods ships in the event of a no-deal Brexit be awarded to a company that wants to run ships but does not actually do so? What do you think?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Philosophical progress: Write a sentence. Feel slightly unsure. Read all morning. Yep, sentence accurate. Next day delete sentence as slightly beside the point.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Every academic’s book collection, especially mine, is a chronicle of a profusion of short bursts of intense enthusiasms.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Random fact discovered today. Immanuel Kant was 59 when he bought his first house.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Academic freedom: the freedom to decide which missed deadline to apologise for first.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

In New Zealand Universities have a statutory duty to be ‘the critic and conscience of society’. Beautifully formulated and a model for us all.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

When Brexiteers say ‘it was never about the economy’ 1. Seems to be admission they have lost the economic argument 2. Why did they put numbers in a bus? 3. Seen no evidence that anyone is prepared to lose job if that is price of leaving (other than a few politicians)

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

PhD candidates. Don’t be Karl Marx. Do not say this in the Preface of your thesis.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Against all expectations, greatly enjoying reading Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. Best undergraduate essay I’ve ever read.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Conversation between two philosophers I heard in 1981: A - Hi, haven’t see you for ages! How’s your work going. B - Oh, I have such doubts about it. A - Never mind, we all do. B - About MY work?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

With my aunt Lotte. 80 years ago she and my father were put on a train from Frankfurt to travel to England to escape the Nazis. They never saw their parents again.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Between the ages of 20 and 30 how many places did you live in? For me it’s 4. Thinking it’s probably many more for younger people.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

What we philosophers keep to ourselves is that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ does NOT entail that ‘the examined life is worth living.’

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Who signed off on the ethics approval for this world-wide study into comparative public health systems?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

My friend Mark Hannam (PhD Philosophy) sent me this quote from Lara Antipova, the heroine of Pasternak’s novel, Dr Zhivago: “I think philosophy should be used sparingly as a seasoning to art and life. To be occupied with it alone is the same as eating horseradish by itself.”

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Another morning shaking my head about the fact that academics write papers hoping to influence public policy, then publish them in venues behind paywalls so that only other academics will see them.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Was asked why, from the start, I chose to write books for students not scholarly monographs. Because the few student texts then available read like tests to see if you deserved to study political philosophy rather than attempts to convince of its importance and fascination.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

Thinking of forming a group called The Alliance of People Who Actually Pay Tax and Would Be Happy to Pay a Bit More To Fund Public and Social Services At A Level A Wealthy and Humane Country Should.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

A column by me on poverty, individual agency, and social structure, for the New Statesman, just published.

The myth of the undeserving poor

Poverty should be understood as a structural problem, not blamed on the choices of individuals.

www.newstatesman.com

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

We missed a trick in the U.K. copying American professorial titles rather than Swiss, where you can rise from Professor ordinarius to Professor extraordinarius.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

And the physical copy has landed...

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

First sighting. Hasn’t made it to me yet but I’m assured it exists.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Have been thinking about this Ivanka tweet in light of @jasonintrator ’s How Propaganda Works. There are certain statements presented as obvious, innocuous truths. If you disagree you seem foolish, but if you agree, are become complicit with something you oppose.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Story from I think Berkeley in 60s. Nobel prize winner was asked what the university could do to honour him. Just give me a reserved parking space he said. Other faculty complained, saying that if they'd known reserved parking was at stake they'd have tried harder for a Nobel.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Philosopher Mary Warnock dies aged 94 I owe my career to Mary Warnock awarding me for Harkness Fellowships. When I thanked her years later, she said 'Well, I always tried to get a philosopher selected.' Saw her just a few months ago, lively as ever.

Philosopher Mary Warnock dies aged 94

Lady Warnock laid foundations for special needs teaching and fertility treatment regulations

www.theguardian.com

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

No reason, but just felt like tweeting my favourite picture of my father and my son from about 20 years ago. It looks like some sort of esoteric craft skill is being based on, but in fact they are both making sure that a bit of cake is being divided fairly.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Many life long Labour voters, like me, voted for other parties in EU elections to send Labour a message. But the message wasn’t ‘you’re fine to carry on enforcing party disciple around a fudged, flawed, message.’

Chris Deerin

@chrisdeerin

5 years

Labour’s greatest betrayal is, in the midst of this disaster, to be utterly unelectable

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

How often my mind turns to John Stuart Mill's warning that we need to guard against creating a system where a seat in parliament is 'an object of desire to adventurers of a low class'.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

First Philosophy reading list I was ever given. Books to buy ⁦ @UCLPhilosophy ⁩ 1980.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

You know I’m not one to brag, so just sharing the news that my Intro to Political Philosophy is going to be translated into Kazakh and all copies distributed free of charge to schools and libraries in Kazakhstan by the Ministry of Education, as part of a ‘100 textbook’ project.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Bit of cancellation/replacement etiquette. The most senior person should initiate cancellation discussion so that junior people don’t feel pressured into going to a meeting they would rather avoid.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Who would have thought Brexit would have been as hard and time-consuming as getting a module amendment proposal approved at a British university?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

When I started as a philosophy undergraduate in London, Wollheim was head of dept at UCL, Winch at KCL, Watkins at LSE and Wiggins at Bedford College. That’s when I got the idea that if your surname started with W you’ve got it made in Philosophy.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

People who talk about the marketplace of ideas seem to neglect the fact that every market requires regulation to prevent monopoly domination, fraud, malpractice, and the sale of dangerous goods.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Still have to remind myself that if in Oxford someone says ‘come to Jesus’ they are inviting you to lunch, not asking you to repent.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

I have so many PDFs saved on my laptop, just in case I’m trapped somewhere for a decade with a good electricity supply but no internet connection.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

The wheels I had when I was 18. The wheels I have now.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

My haul after 40 years of toil.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Is it beginning to dawn on policy makers that hospitals full of empty beds is a good thing, not an indication of inefficiency?

Matthew Fraser 🇪🇺

@frasermatthew

4 years

Emmanuel Macron live on television announcing that, when this crisis is over, the French state will make a massive long-term investment in the nation's hospital and health system and its workers.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

British academia used to be tolerant of failure and allow second chances. I left school with one A level, got another 3 years later and a place at UCL and then academic career. Others my age have similar stories. But is such a thing still possible?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Luckily today I can retreat to the ivory tower and lose myself in my research on, ummm, authoritarian undermining of democracy, and pandemic ethics.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Adorno’s desk, complete with Metronome, in a glass box on the campus at the University of Frankfurt.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

Exclusive sneak preview. Should be available December or January. No major changes but some updating and rethinking. Art: Gabrielle Munter Breakfast with Birds

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

And it's up. The revised Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry on Karl Marx, now co-authored with David Leopold.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Have just written that overcoming poverty isn't only a matter of meeting animal needs for food and shelter, but also human needs for social life, fitting in, and even occasional luxury. Seems ridiculous still having to be saying this 100 years after Rowntree made the same point.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Now strikes me that there was probably 1,000 times more coverage of the Turkish border than the Irish border in the Referendum debate.

Simon Glendinning

@lonanglo

5 years

@JoWolffBSG I think they thought we would leave the EU.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Student: I really want to study in the U.K. next year because of Brexit. Me: ????? Student: Yes it will be so interesting to come and observe a political and economic crisis

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

Does the U.K. have a national animal? If not I think I’ve found one.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Worst purchase of the year? Changing my phone package in Feb so I could have free roaming in 100 countries?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

@IanDunt Always reminded that a Labour backbencher told me that during Labour Government, they would always listen to objections from Heseltine and Clarke, who seemed to want best for country, rather than other Tories interested in scoring cheap political points.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

7 years

Overheard in supermarket 8 yr old - You’re such a baby 6 yr old - Am I wearing a nappy? Do I have a dummy? Wanted to sign him for philosophy

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Italian waitress delivers my spaghetti alle vongole. ‘Would you like Parmesan?’ ‘Um, not sure, would you have it?’ ‘OH MY GOD!! No never. Seafood and cheese? That’s terrible. TERRIBLE! Never.’ ‘Um, no thanks then.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

How dare someone write on this topic without referring to the paper of mine exactly on the subject that I haven’t written yet?

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Reported that 80% of staff employed by Oxbridge Colleges are on precarious contracts. The Colleges do not recognise the trade unions and hence those staff cannot strike today against their employers. #UCUstrike

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Prediction from @trishgreenhalgh Because the government’s confused messages are now leading people to ignore lockdown there will be an uptick in deaths on June 17th.

ITV News

@itvnews

4 years

"Once government starts being inconsistent, once public health messages are watered down, people are going to think this doesn't matter." Primary healthcare professor @trishgreenhalgh says she fears Dominic Cummings actions will have serious consequences.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

7 years

Having seen a few recent Tweets on the subject, thought I might add Harvard Professor Robert Nozick's own reflections on Imposter Syndrome.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Weird random flashback. When Jerry Cohen left UCL for All Souls College Oxford we students got him a drawing of Marx and a cigar cutter, inscribed ‘Private property of G.A. Cohen.’

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Please, Simone, I'm in a meeting.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

Received reasonable sized payment for work done for another university (before strike!). Have donated it to UCU Fighting Fund. Need to support hourly paid and early career staff who are fighting on behalf of all and will be struggling for food and rent.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

5 years

Why don’t political philosophers comment more on current events in the peer reviewed literature? Because empires rise and fall in the time it takes from initial submission to eventual publication.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

3 years

Things I learned studying philosophy: Cicero is Tully Every creature with a heart has a kidney Not all swans are white You can double the size of a square by constructing a square on the diagonal.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

6 years

Karl Marx, 1871, complains about unprecedented levels of fake news, enabled by latest technology.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

2 years

Amartya Sen famously argued that famines were not caused by lack of food but lack of entitlement to food. This is a general formula that might soon have much wider application.

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Jo Wolff

@JoWolffBSG

4 years

Amateur tip: when the chair tells you your time is almost up, carry on as normal but say ‘finally’ quite a lot.

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