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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