The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

occasionally published advance notice of these meetings, but she had wondered whether these bland few sentences gave the full story:
morning session: Sexual Semiotics and Private Space; coffee; Perversion and Autonomy; lunch
(for there were other appetites to consider), and so on into the afternoon. The abstracts of the papers were probably accurate enough, but what, might one wonder, went on
afterwards
at such a conference? These people were not prudes, she suspected, and they were, after all,
applied
ethicists.
    Isabel herself was no prude, but she believed very strongly in discretion in sexual matters. In particular, she was doubtful about when it was right, if ever, to publish details of one’s own sexual affairs. Would the other person have consented? she wondered; probably not, and in that case one did another a wrong by writing about what was essentially a private matter between two people. There were two classes of persons upon whom a duty of virtually absolute confidentiality rested: doctors and lovers. You should be able to tell your doctor anything, safe in the knowledge that what you said would not go beyond the walls within which it was said, and the same should be true of your lover. And yet this notion was under attack: the state wanted information from doctors (about your genes, about your sexual habits, about your childhood illnesses), and doctors had to resist. And the vulgar curious, ofwhom there were countless legions, wanted information about your sexual life, and would pay generously to hear it—if you were sufficiently well known. Yet people were entitled to their secrets, to their sense that at least there was some part of their life which they could regard as ultimately, intimately private; because if they were denied this privacy, then the very self was diminished. Let people have their secrets, Isabel thought, although probably unfashionably.
    Unfortunately philosophers were notable offenders when it came to self-disclosure. Bertrand Russell had done this, with his revealing diaries, and A. J. Ayer too. Why did these philosophers imagine that the public should be interested in whether or not they slept with somebody, and how often? Were they trying to prove something? Would she have resisted Bertrand Russell? she wondered; and answered her own question immediately. Yes. And A. J. Ayer too.
    By six o’clock the backlog of articles had been cleared and covering letters had been written to referees in respect of those which were going to be taken to the next stage. She had decided that six-thirty would be the ideal time to call at number 48, Warrender Park Terrace, as this would give the flatmates time to return from work (whatever that was) and yet would not interfere with their dinner arrangements. Leaving her library, she went through to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee before setting off.
    It was not a long walk to Warrender Park Terrace, which lay just beyond the triangle of park at the end of Bruntsfield Avenue. She took her time, looking in shopwindows before finally strolling across the grass to the end of the terrace. Although it was a pleasant spring evening, a stiff breeze had arisen and the clouds were scudding energetically across the sky, towards Norway. This wasa northern light, the light of a city that belonged as much to the great, steely plains of the North Sea as it did to the soft hills of its hinterland. This was not Glasgow, with its soft, western light, and its proximity to Ireland and to the Gaeldom of the Highlands. This was a townscape raised in the teeth of cold winds from the east; a city of winding cobbled streets and haughty pillars; a city of dark nights and candlelight, and intellect.
    She reached Warrender Park Terrace and followed it round its slow curve. It was a handsome street, occupying one side of the road and looking out over the Meadows and the distant pinnacled roofs and spires of the old infirmary. The building, a high tenement in the Victorian