The Sevenoaks School Journal of Philosophy Volume One | Page 3

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Editor's Introduction
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APORIA (ἀπορία) signals a dead end, an impasse. The term captures the playful bemusement
underlying philosophical activity. The early Platonic dialogues were crafted to engender this
useful state of perplexity. Socrates employed a method of cross-examination, his testing and
trying elenchus, to lure his interlocutors into this aporetic state. By rendering the familiar unfa-
miliar, aporia acts as an intellectual acid capable of dissolving preexisting prejudices and un-
questioned assumptions. Stressing process, it underscores the power of puzzlement: confusion
is not the end but rather the beginning of intellectual activity.
This journal showcases the philosophical spirit flowing throughout Sevenoaks School,
and contains some of the finest thinking and writing produced by our students. In her submis-
sion, Lila Mendoza draws attention to our uneasy relationship with the immoral in literature.
She flags up the paradox of breaking bad: our infatuation for the outlaw in fiction, she argues,
is matched only by our desire never to come across such shady characters in real life. Brendan
McGrath's essay provides a cool contribution to the fiery controversy surrounding the statute
of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. With brevity and precision, he deploys analysis as a tool to attain
clarity and dispel the fog of linguistic confusion: philosophy as a prophylactic against the
seductions of grammar. In Daniel Wu's mature and studious essay, literature emerges not only
as a mirror of our moral world, reflecting our inner preferences and aspirations, but also as a
mould of character. We are, it would appear, what we read. In addition to shaping selves, Wu
argues that literature has an emetic force, allowing readers to expel the darkness lurking with-
in. Finally, Rachel Tustin's paper meditates on the politics of trust. Exploiting a telling distinc-
tion between a theoretical justification and a practical act, she argues that it is only by foment-
ing a trusting attitude that man becomes an animal capable of keeping trust: we are only able
to trust by trusting. The project of setting up ideal conventions to guarantee the justification of
trust, she suggests, is neither intellectually coherent nor necessary in practice. In doing so she
not only reminds us, with Goethe, that the deed was in the beginning, not the word; but also,
with Hegel, that the fear of falling into error is the error.
This collection of prizewinning essays aims to celebrate success and to encourage fu-
ture activity. By providing a criterion of philosophical excellence, they will no doubt inspire fu-
ture philosophers at Sevenoaks and ignite an outburst of intellectual emulation.
Dr Martin Otero Knott
Sevenoaks School
14 May 2017