Academic

Jerry had and set really high standards in philosophy. In his published work and in professional contexts, he always presented his arguments with honesty, rigour, insight and humour. Many of the other people who have written about him in the last day or so have made this and similar points. I?d like, though, to pay tribute to another way in which he approached his work and responsibilities as a scholar. Many of us, facing competing demands for our time and attention, are tempted to adjust our efforts in the light of our expected audience. I might fret and worry about getting things right before a professional audience, but be more relaxed about the prospect of a group of students or a lay audience. Jerry, if anything, did things the other way around. Faced with the opportunity to talk about social justice, equality, capitalism or socialism to an audience of ordinary people, Jerry would be absolutely meticulous about explaining himself clearly and engagingly to them, about getting the ideas across. He knew, I think, that he was smarter than most professional philosophers and could, in conversation with them, live by his wits if he had to, but with lay audiences he left nothing to chance. Years ago, he gave a talk on the TV as part of a BBC2 or C4 series on capitalism to which I think Milton Friedman also contributed. My mother, not a socialist, and definitely not a philosopher, was captivated by the anticapitalist case that Jerry put. (I?ve forgotten the details, but I seem to remember that the argument centred around the parable of a ?schmoo?, a sort of living-brick?) He was effective in such contexts because justice mattered to him, because it really does matter, and not just as as an exercise in the academy.