Philosophōn prosōpa

Thanks to Crooked Timber, I have enjoyed these great photographs of philosophers by Steve Pyke. Be sure to look at the new batch as well as the old; familiar faces abound: Appiah, Rorty, Cohen--and he spelled Roger Scruton's name wrong (a jab at the old conservative?). I find the original series much more impressive; you get all the liver spots, stray hairs, and ridiculously huge glasses perched over droopy eyes. Several of these guys were seriously superannuated at the time of the photoshoot and would die shortly afterward: A.J. Ayer, H.L.A. Hart, Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, for example. CLR James passed away the following month. When Pyke blurs his photography it creates a weird effect: Rawls looks positively Boris Karloff-like, while John Searle might as well be a minor character in The Grapes of Wrath. For me it's hard to look at these people and not think what great company they would have been.