Mind! A Unique Review (1901)

Frontispiece

The philosophical journal Mind was first published in Oxford in 1876 with George Croom Robertson as editor. Back then philosophy in Britain was under the sway of Hegelians like Thomas Hill Green. F H Bradley and J.M.E. McTaggart. In the twentieth century Mind would be the home of the new analytical school, carrying articles by G.E. Moore (like “The Refutation of Idealism” in 1903), P F Strawson, Alan Turing and John Searle.

Just as philosophy in Britain was swinging from imperially-minded idealism, to the more pragmatic and cynical scepticism of the Cold War, the journal Mind was challenged from within. ‘A. Troglodyte’ was the pseudonym under which the Anglo-German philosopher and himself the treasurer of the Mind Association from 1900 to 1936, F.C.S. Schiller (1864-1937), brought out a special issue under the title Mind!. (adapted from a commentary by Heartfield, Mute, November 2013)

Mind! is subtitled the “Special Illustrated Christmas Number”, substituting the volume 10, number 4 of Mind. At a first glance it looks exactly like the “real” periodical with same colour of wrappers and same typography, but at a second glance, all of the contents are sarcastic. There are articles like “The Critique of Pure Rot” by I. Cant; “New Platonic Dialogues. I. the “Aporia” of the “Lysis”; II. A Sequel to the “Republic”; III. “Congratulations” “; “Zur Phänomenologie des absoluten Unsinns” by Prof. Dr. G. W. Flegel; “Pholisophy’s Last Word” by I.M. Greening; or New Aphorisms of Herakleitos (like “Asses prefer the sweepings of the lecture rooms to my original researches”, “There is a way to lecture and a way not. But the drier way is better than the damper”, “There is a way to lecture and a way from lecture; and the way to and the way from are the same: it is a short cut”).

Edited by A. Troglodyte, with the cooperation of The Absolute and others
Publisher Williams and Norgate, London, 1901
141 pages

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