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General
Jokes:
What
is the difference between a philosopher and an engineer? About $50,000
a year.
René
Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "What will it be, whiskey?"
Descartes replies, "I think not!" And he disappears.
Jean-Paul
Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness.
He says to the waitress, "I'd like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream."
The waitress replies, "I'm sorry, monsieur, but we're out of cream. How about
with no milk?"
Dean
(to the physics department): "Why do I always have to give you so much money
for laboratories, expensive equipment, and the like? Why couldn't you be more
like the math department: they only need pencils, paper, and waste-paper baskets?
Or even better, why couldn't you be more like the philosophy department: they
only need pencils and paper."
A
boy is about to go on his first date, and his father gives him the following
advice: "If you are ever in need of conversation, just remember the three F's:
food, family, and philosophy. You can always start a conversation about one
of those subjects." The
boy picks up his date and they go to a diner. Ice cream sodas in front of them,
the two stare at each other for a long time, as the boy's nervousness builds.
He remembers his father's advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl:
"Do you like potato pancakes?" She says "No," and the silence returns. After
a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father's suggestion
and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, "Do you have a brother?"
The girl says "No," and there is silence once again. The
boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father's advice and asks the
girl: "If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?"
An
angel came down for a meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Greeting
the assembled philosophers, the angel offered to answer a single question for
them. Immediately the philosophers set to arguing about what they should ask.
So the angel said, "Alright, you figure out what you want to ask. I'll come
back tomorrow." And he left the philosophers to deliberate. Some of the philosophers
favored asking conjunctive questions, but others argued persuasively that the
angel probably wouldn't count this as a single question. One philosopher wanted
to ask "What is the best question to ask?" in the hope that some day another
angel might make a similar offer, at which point they could then ask the best
question. But this suggestion was rejected by those who feared that no such
opportunity would arise and did not want to waste their only question. Finally,
the philosophers agreed on the following question: "What is the ordered pair
whose first member is the best question to ask, and whose second member is the
answer to that question?" Satisfied with their decision, the philosophers awaited
the angel's return the next day, whereupon they posed their question. And the
angel replied: "It is the ordered pair whose first member is the question you
just asked, and whose second member is the answer I am now giving." And then
he disappeared.
What
do you get when you cross an aesthete with a phenomenologist? An interior
Dasein-er.
The
Thomistic Proof that There are No Refried Beans:
Objection
1. It would seem that there are refried beans. For many supermarkets sell
cans with labels bearing the claim that the internal contents of these cans
are refried beans.
Objection
2. And the menus of many Mexican restaurants list refried beans as an item,
and diners who order this item receive a substance on their plates that the
servers claim is refried beans.
Objection
3. And many Mexican cookbooks contain the recipe for refried beans.
On
the contrary, sacred Scripture and the writings of the Philosopher plainly
show that no refried beans exist now, no refried beans have ever existed, and
no refried beans ever will exist. For all who cook Mexican food affirm that
the first ingredient of any recipe of refried beans is half a recipe of refried
beans prepared at an earlier time. Consequently, if any positive quantity of
refried beans exists at any moment in time, then a positive quantity of refried
beans existed at an earlier moment in time. Hence, by metaphysical induction,
if any positive quantity of refried beans exists at any moment in time, then
there can be no first moment in time, and there must be infinitely many recipes
of refried beans, which would occupy all of space since space is necessarily
finite. But the claims that time has no beginning and that all of space is occupied
by refried beans are both plainly absurd. Hence, by contraposition no positive
quantity of refried beans exists, ever.
Reply
to Objection 1. Don't believe everything you read.
Reply
to Objection 2. This objection confuses the distinction between appearance
and substance. The menu item on your plate may look and taste like what you
imagine refried beans taste are supposed to look and taste like, just as the
servers claim. But substantially these are not refried beans.
Reply
to Objection 3. The cooks who claim to have discovered a recipe for refried
beans have clearly fallen prey to the erroneous modern philosophies that propose
that time had no beginning and space is infinite.
*Special thanks to Dr. Peter Vanderschraaf for this joke
Light
Bulb Jokes:
How many
philosophers does it take to change a light bulb? It depends on how you
define "change."
How
many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb? Two: one to
change the lightbulb and one to observe how the lightbulb symbolizes an incandescent
beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of Cosmic Nothingness.
How
many Kantians does it take to change a light bulb? Two: one to change
the phenomenal bulb and one to explain that we may not have actually changed
the bulb-in-itself.
How
many deconstructionists does it take to change a light bulb? On the contrary,
the Nile is the longest river in Africa.
How
many phenomenologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only a few,
but by the time they finish, a 100-watt bulb would be reduced to a night light.
How
many Hegelians does it take to change a light bulb? None: the bulb is
just at one dialectical pole between "light" and "dark;"
it will eventually glow again.
How
many Heraclitians does it take to change a light bulb? None: it's never
the same light bulb again anyway.
How
many Humeans does it take to change a light bulb? None: since the bulb
actually contains a gaseous substance, and thus contains no "abstract reasoning
concerning quantity or number" nor any "experimental reasoning concerning
matters of fact and existence" it will simply be removed and thrown in
the fire.
How
many skeptics does it take to change a light bulb? Actually, they would
refuse to do it; they have no sense of urgency about the situation and aren't
sure they're really in the dark.
How
many analytic philosophers does it take to change a light bulb? None;
it's a pseudo-problem. Light bulbs give off light (hence the name). If
the bulb wasn't giving off light, it would not be a "light bulb;"
would it?
How
many monists does it take to change a light bulb? Don't be silly, there's
only one monist!
How
many Epicureans does it take to change a light bulb? None: they're too
busy taking advantage of the darkness [wink, wink, nudge, nudge].
How
many process philosophers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one
really fast one to stand in front of the bulb and block it from prehending the
attribute of "brokenness."
How
many constructivists does it take to change a light bulb? Actually, they
would refuse to answer on the grounds that the question only perpetuates the
myth of objectivity.
How
many speech act theorists does it take to change a light bulb? Do you
really want to know or are you simply asking me to change it?
How
many modal logicians does it take to change a light bulb? In which world?
How
many fatalists does it take to change a light bulb? None: why fight it?
How
many reformed epistemologists does it take to change a light bulb? 1.37:
that needs no explanation because it is a properly basic belief.
How
many theodicists does it take to change a light bulb? 100: one to change
the bulb and 99 to explain why an all-powerful and all-loving God would allow
darkness to occur in the world at all.
How
many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb? None: the seeds of
revolution and change are within the light bulb itself.
How
many quantum physicists does it take to change a light bulb? It depends
on the size of the room; one would first need to fill the room with blindfolded
scientists. Then, upon a signal, they would remove the blindfolds and look toward
the general area of the "old" bulb. Then, when the waveform collapses,
whoever is CLOSEST to the newly "congealed" bulb, grabs it, and WITHOUT
blinking, makes the change. Also, this procedure MAY required one additional
physicist to remove a dead cat from the room.
How
many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Two: one to hold
down the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with clocks.
How
Did the Great Philosophers Die?:
Thales:
drowning
Parmenides:
it wasn't anything at all
Ockham:
cut while shaving
Russell:
cut while being shaved - by one who did not shave himself
Descartes:
stopped thinking
Spinoza:
substance abuse
Leibniz:
monadnucleosis
Darwin:
natural causes
Hume:
unnatural causes
Kant:
transcendental causes (though it was his own idea)
Paley:
by design
Heidegger:
by Dasein
Meinong:
climbing accident
Neurath:
boating accident
G.E.
Moore: by his own hand, obviously
Berkeley:
his girlfriend stopped seeing him
Sartre:
nausea
Pascal:
became despondent after losing a wager
Wittgenstein:
fell off a ladder
Hegel:
collision with owl at dusk
*Special thanks to this web-page and the January 1994 edition of Ethics