As a big fan of being a fly on the wall, I notice mannerisms and tics that people present. Seeing that a significant source of my social interaction for the past three years has been within the walls of academia, I have noted several ‘philosophical tics’ of many lecturers. At first, it was just an inside joke with myself. Then, I started presenting my findings to some of my classmates, and the scope of the inside joke widened. From time to time, these tics slip out in our conversations—sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Not until a few days ago did I realize that these tics were a much more global phenomenon than I could’ve anticipated.
It has now come to my attention that I’m not the only one aware of these tics, as I have been
enlightened by the 1960s Monty Python-like sketch “Oxford Philosophy” by Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller. It is laughably similar to conversations that I’ve walked past in the university halls. Moreover, there is Justin Weinberg’s article “So, philosophers tend to have these occupational tics, right?” in the Daily Nous (2025). So, this is bigger than my experiences at Lund University, obviously.
Weinberg writes about a tic that he has dealt with: saying ‘right?’ at the end of sentences. Some of you, if you’ve listened during your philosophy lectures, probably recognize this immediately. Weinberg claims that this specific tic is not a good way to communicate, that it is a strange way of constantly claiming that your previous statement is correct. This, he states, is particularly odd in the context of philosophy—where, if your argument is good enough, stating your argument should be sufficient for others to understand that it is right. He ends the article with a request to philosophers to be more mindful of the words they use and how often they use them.
I have to agree with Weinberg that it is odd to say ‘right?’ after a supposedly good argument. But I wish to offer a student’s perspective to his reflection. From my own experience and the other students that I have spoken to about this, the tics are part of the fun. Keeping your ears open for when a lecturer says ‘right?’, ‘entertain the thought’, or ‘note that…’ feels like a game. To then go on and use it yourself feels like you’re carrying on the tradition. While writing my BA thesis, my classmates and I often had fits of giggles whenever we could fit in ‘beyond the scope of thisthesis’. It was as if we were trying on shoes that we couldn’t fully fit in yet and stumbled around trying to show off our cool new footwear.
I wouldn’t consider these occupational tics as a bad thing, and Weinberg notes that not all of
them are bad. Where we draw the line isn’t completely clear, and I don’t fully understand why some would be bad and others wouldn’t. The use of ‘right?’ in a lecture feels inclusive, as if the lecturer is trying to bring the audience with them in their way of thinking—a quick check-in before moving on. This is something that Weinberg also points out, and means is false—that it instead has the rhetorical function of “the opposite of a real question”. Instead of ‘right?’ being interpreted as a way to check in with the audience, he argues that it comes across as ‘you agree with me, don’t you?’.
Now, to be fair, I don’t know how often Weinberg is a part of the audience, but I have never
experienced it that way—neither have my classmates. It may be different when most of the
lecture is in Swedish, and suddenly the lecturer adds a ‘right?’ at the end of a Swedish sentence. Maybe I’m not taking it as seriously as a native English speaker would. Still, the element of convincing that Weinberg refers to is not evidently there. Instead, I only find it engaging.
Some may find repeating these words annoying, but I think we should embrace it. Just as other lines of work have their way of speaking, this is seemingly just part of doing philosophy. We should definitely not stop making fun of it either because sometimes it gets ridiculous, much like in the aforementioned sketch, but it is still a ‘tradition’ that I think we should pass on. So, continue with your philosophical tics. It shouldn’t be that bad, right?
Writer: Siri Thiwång, Administratör och Medieansvarig