A coat with a name

 If you took a course called Introduction to Philosophy, odds are you began with Plato’s account of Socrates.

If I were asked to teach that course, I think I’d begin Alexander John Ellis’s coat. Ellis, 1814-1890, was one of those polymaths that appeared like wildflowers during Victoria’s reign. He’s best known for his work in phonetics and musicology, but he tromped around in other fields.

He had an overcoat, which he named Dreadnought and wore constantly except in summer. Dreadnought had 28 pockets. The pockets held things that were useful in his work or in emergencies.

The pockets held manuscripts, tuning forks, string, a corkscrew, a knife sharpener and other wonders. It would never occur to me to carry most of them around all day. 

It’s not his eccentricity that interests me. Rather, it’s the cast of mind that works on concepts. What’s useful in your work? What’s useful in emergencies? Ellis thought those questions through, and came up with Dreadnought as a practical response for aligning his life with his thinking.

Philosophy is a bit like that, I think. We collect concepts and use them as tools in our work and in emergencies. Occasionally, philosophers realize they need to ditch an old tool and put a new one in their pocket. Occasionally, they realize they need new pockets.