Surds

I’ve been given a lift; we’re off to London. I’m in a car with a philosopher of mathematics. Only gradually do I realise why he gave me a lift. He gave me a lift because he wanted to tell me at length how much he hates Deleuze. We are driving to London and he is telling me why Deleuze got it all wrong. I am in a car with a man who genuinely wants to understand Deleuze, he says, but who can’t, for the life of me, understand him. He is a man of good faith, the philosopher of mathematics. of good sense and of common sense and he wants to understand, he says. I just wish he would write clearly, he says.

Why bother with him at all then? I ask him. Because it’s humbug, he said. And I think to myself: how marvellous it is to hear this word, humbug. Humbug, I think to myself, who would use such a word? Humbug, I say. Yes, he says, he gets it all back to front. He’s been talking to mathematicians, he says, that much is clear. But I don’t think Deleuze understands what he’s writing about.

We’re on the M25, circling London, looking for an exit. The philosopher of mathematics is explaining surds to me. That’s what Plato’s all about, he says, surds. We’re circling round London and listening to Hank Williams. ‘I like Hank Williams’, I tell him. The philosopher of mathematics tells me about his band. ‘We’ve just done a song about exchange students’, he says. I am happy, because he’s not talking about surds or about Deleuze.