For an Irish Times Unthinkable 2026 World Cup special, I ask who would line out in an Irish team for a renewed edition of the Philosopher Football Match? George Berkeley and John Toland are nailed-down starters but there’s a place for Roy Keane too…
Now imagine: “There are seconds left – the sides are deadlocked. Does a tree fall in the woods if no one sees it? Who knows, but VAR has spotted a hand ball in the English box. And it’s George Berkeley who is stepping up to take the penalty. ‘Esse est percipi,’ he says. ‘To be is to be perceived.’ Bentham – a notorious critic of human rights – tries to refute it. Already on the losing side of a key argument in moral philosophy, he dives the wrong way. And it’s a goal!
“More precisely, it either crossed the line, or it didn’t cross the line, and that’s good enough for referee Erwin Schrödinger.
“England captain AJ Ayer is protesting; he says the verification principle of logical positivism implies the final score is a pseudo-statement lacking empirical rigour. John Locke and John Stuart Mill are arguing about the proper limits of liberalism after conceding what was a soft penalty. And, in an outburst viewed as unsporting behaviour, an exasperated Bertrand Russell proclaims ‘the present King of France is bald’ and gets a red card.”
One doesn’t have to dream. Ireland has a winning tradition of philosophy. It deserves more recognition.
Read the full article here: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/06/08/ireland-vs-england-in-philosophy-who-would-win-a-world-cup-of-ideas/
And a recommended team change from UCC’s Prof Vittorio Bufacchi: “… the absence of Jonathan Swift from the starting 11 is unforgivable. Swift’s contribution to the philosophical tradition of utopianism, immortalised in his masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels, cannot go unnoticed, especially this year, the 300th anniversary of its publication.
“Swift’s inclusion in the Irish team could be a gamechanger. As Kathleen Williams pointed out in her 1958 book Jonathan Swift and the Age of Compromise, Swift’s work is characterised by ‘the elusive brilliance of the attack … [but] the attack is also a defence’… take William Molyneux out and give the No. 10 shirt to Swift. A small change guaranteed to make a big difference.”
Joe Humphreys 