Friday, March 03, 2006

A Philosophical Dilemma

Socialist Swine and Dadahead have been going at tooth and tong over who was the greatest (English) philosopher Kant or Hume. I had to take issue with them for forgetting Hegel, which of course Monty Python didn't. But then they were Cambridge English School Boys after all, the buggers. None the less everyone forgets Spinoza, which is what happens when you drink too much Ne Plus Ultra.

The Philosophers' Drinking Song


Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, [some versions have 'Schopenhauer and Hegel']

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whisky every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.


Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python



Gary L. Hardcastle
Department of Philosophy
University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI
U.S.A.

My aim in this talk is to present a comprehensive overview of each and every one of the main themes endured by analytic philosophy in the last sixty years or so, and to argue the bold historical claim that the whole lot is well represented-indeed, often best represented-in the work of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, collectively and henceforth referred to as "Monty Python." Since I have all of fifty minutes to make my case, I expect we'll have time for a song at the end. So let's get to it.

Tony Negri on Spinoza:

The Savage Anomaly

THE POWER OF SPINOZA'S METAPHYSICS AND POLITICS

Antonio Negri

Translation by Michael Hardt

University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis Oxford


SPINOZA AND MARX
Eugene Holland
Spinoza


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