27 ideas
| 15105 | F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said.. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said, 'Sorry, we don't cater for functions'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12408 | Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please. Waitress: Sorry, we're out of cream; would no milk do? | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12397 | Said Plato: 'The things that we feel... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Said Plato: 'The things that we feel/ Are not ontologically real,/ But just the excrescence/ Of numinous essence/ Our senses can never reveal.' [Basil Ransome-Davis] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12407 | Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink?... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink? Descartes: I think not (...and promptly vanishes) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12399 | There was a young student called Fred... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There was a young student called Fred,/ Who was questioned on Descartes and said:/ 'It's perfectly clear/ That I'm not really here,/ For I haven't a thought in my head.' [V.R. Ormerod] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 20963 | A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive in the country. 'Oh look!' she says, 'Those sheep have been shorn.' 'Yes', says the philosopher, 'on this side'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12404 | Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: (reply to 12403) Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd:/ I am always about in the Quad./ And that's why the tree/ Will continue to be,/ Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.' [anon] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12403 | There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There once was a man who said: 'God/ Must think it exceedingly odd/ If he finds that this tree/ Continues to be,/ When there's no-one about in the Quad.' [Ronald Knox] (reply in 12404) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12402 | ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: (continued from 12401) ..But if he's a student of Berkeley,/ One thing will emerge, rather starkly,/ That he ought to believe/ What his senses perceive,/ No matter how dimly or darkly. [Leslie Johnson] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12409 | The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher Berkeley once said/ In the dark to a maid in his bed:/ 'No perception, my dear,/ Means I'm not really here,/ But only a thought in your head.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 14694 | "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? ..... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? "Purple." | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12401 | A toper who spies in the distance... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: A toper who spies in the distance,/ Striped tigers, will get some assistance/ From reading Descartes,/ Who holds that it's part/ Of his duty to doubt their existence. ... [Leslie Johnson] - (continued in 12402) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12410 | There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There once was a man who said 'Damn!/ It is borne in upon me I am/ An engine that moves/ In predestinate grooves:/ I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram.' [M.E. Hare] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 9392 | How do behaviourists greet each other? [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: How do behaviourists greet each other? Hi - you're fine, how am I? | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 7518 | If folk psychology gives a network of causal laws, that fits neatly with functionalism [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: The portrait of folk psychology as a network of causal laws dovetailed neatly with the emerging philosophy of mind called functionalism. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], II) | |
| A reaction: And from the lower levels functionalism is supported by the notion that the brain is modular. Note the word 'laws'; this implies an underlying precision in folk psychology, which is then easily attacked. Maybe the network is too complex for simple laws. |
| 7519 | Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
| A reaction: If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology. |
| 7520 | Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177. |
| 20440 | Art is a referential activity, hence indefinable, but it has a set of symptoms [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: No definition of art is possible (since it is a referential activity), …but the symptoms of art are syntactic density, semantic density, syntactic repleteness, exemplificationality, and multiple and complex reference. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.22-255), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 4 | |
| A reaction: I wish these labels were more self-explanatory. Goodman seems to want to assimilate art to his earlier interests in linguistic anti-realism and mereology. I wouldn't have thought he now had many followers. |
| 20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
| Full Idea: Artistic symbols are to be judged for the classifications they bring about, for how novel and insightful those classifications are, for how they change our world perceptions and relations. | |
| From: report of Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968]) by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 4 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be an awfully long way from our normal experience of art. I understand 'symbols' in early Flemish art, but not in Mondriaan, or even Rembrandt. |
| 20438 | A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: The most miserable performance without actual mistakes does count as an instance of a work, …but the most brilliant performance with a single wrong note does not. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.186), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) | |
| A reaction: Mereological essentialism applied to art! You need to be a highly theoretical and technical philosopher (which Goodman was) to maintain such a weird and contrary-usage proposal. |
| 20437 | A copy only becomes an 'instance' of an artwork if there is a system of notation [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Paintings and sculptures do not work within a notation; hence, there is no copying of an original that would preserve its originality. A copy of a painting is a copy, not an instance of the original. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.212), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 2 | |
| A reaction: Sounds conclusive, but isn't. Is a poetry manuscript a 'notation' or an original? Why is an etching plate a notation, but painting on canvas is an original? Can I create a painting specifically so that it can be copied (by my students)? Intention matters. |
| 12405 | 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche,/ 'It's thumbs up, you're OK. Pleased to mietzsche./ If you're working-class bores,/ It's thumbs down and up yours!/ If you don't know your place, then I'll tietzsche.' [Gerry Hamill] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 9391 | Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12400 | Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'/ A statement that made David fume./ He said: 'In cause and effect,/ There is a defect;/ That it's mine you can only assume.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 16527 | Causation - we all thought we knew it/ Till Hume came along and saw through it/…. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Causation - we all thought we knew it / Till Hume came along and saw through it / We notice that A / Follows B every day / And frankly that's all there is to it. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 17592 | The barman called 'Time!', and Augustine said..... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The barman called 'Time!'. Augustine: 'I don't know what you mean, though I did before you said that'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 15208 | The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |