More philosophy...
As mentioned a short time ago, my department when I was a research student used to run weekly Monday afternoon seminars at which a visiting speaker would come and tell staff and research students about their work in progress.

D was either in the closing weeks of his PhD, or had just been given it - I can't remember which. Either way, he was recognised as being scarily good, and he took no prisoners either in debate or while teaching. One Monday, we were gathered to hear a paper given by someone who was A Big Name in his particular field. He spoke for the required 40 minutes or so, and D sat looking out of the window.

The paper over, questions were invited from the audience. D put up his hand.
"Thanks for that interesting paper," he began. "I suppose that, in response, someone could argue that..." and he proceeded to take apart Big Name's paper, point by point, without notes. With every sentence, Big Name crumpled a little more. He plainly didn't know how he was going to respond to this barrage. To call it a textbook example of how to demolish a philosophical argument would be inaccurate: it was the sort of demonstration that doesn't get mentioned in the textbooks because noone would believe that an off-the-cuff response could be so surgical and so devastating.
"Um... well..." Big Name stumbled in response. "Yes. Those are good points, and I'd probably have to take them into account. It's possible that you're substantially right."

And how did D respond to this?
"Oh, no," he said. "I think you're right. I was just describing a response to you that someone could make. I think they'd be nuts if they did, though."

Big Name didn't stick around for drinks afterwards.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 11:55, 11 replies)

To be fair
If he hadn't considered that his argument could be picked apart, he needs to at least grow a thicker skin. I spend about 60% of my research time working out how people could counter my thesis. It's just what happens.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:02, closed)

It wasn't so much that,
as the fact that D - still a relative newcomer to the profession - demolished the argument of a Big Name, despite being in agreement with it and having no time at all for the position he'd just articulated, just because he could.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:27, closed)

Ah, ok.

(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:30, closed)

This reminds me of
an academic work in my college library by a Classicist professor, in the form of an immense and exhaustive history of the uses of a particular particle in Latin. Once he'd finished it the don wrote a rambling jeremiad of a preface in which he basically said "Why have I wasted twenty years of my life on this book? No-one's going to read it! I've thrown my prestigious tenure down the toilet!"

See also the law professor who published "Contract Law: Part I" in the firm and croissant-clenching belief that it was the finest work in the field and would revolutionise theory and practice within the profession. About a month later a colleague published an article in a law journal that methodically ripped "Contract Law: Part I" to shreds. There was no "Part II".
( .Yeti., Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:18, closed)

The second part seems par for the course, to be fair.
Simon Blackburn has written some wonderfully waspish reviews. This one, for example, is great: though it's possible that some of the details might mean more to philosophers than those outside the profession, phrases like "the Titanic hits its iceberg before leaving port, although, if one may abuse the metaphor, it hits plenty more before the end of the voyage" ought to leave noone in any doubt about what he thinks...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:39, closed)

Reveal Big Name's Name
Go on, you know you are dying to.
(justin(e), Fri 25 Nov 2011, 15:43, closed)

I can't remember it -
if I ever knew (or at least recognised) it; he was talking about mind and language stuff, and that's not my field. I only turned up because it was a sort of expected.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 18:57, closed)

Steven Pinker?

(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Sat 26 Nov 2011, 0:41, closed)

No.
A Big Name in philosophy doesn't - barring a few exceptions - imply being a Big Name generally...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sat 26 Nov 2011, 10:38, closed)

Was it
Strawson, Hawthorne or David Lewis?

Although I suspect that picking a fight with Lewis would have garnered a much more robust response/violence.
(Foxinsockssir, Sat 26 Nov 2011, 20:58, closed)

I honestly have no idea.
It was a long time ago, and, like I said, I was attending mainly out of a sense of obligation. Mind and language stuff generally leaves me cold, and always has.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 28 Nov 2011, 11:32, closed)