Observations from Afar

Wednesday, July 12

Are Philosophers Real People?

I'm not a philosopher. I am a real person. You may now be wondering, what is the difference? Are philosophers real people? No, they are not. Oh, there have been a few real persons who have infiltrated the ranks of such phil-aliens, but at most they were only imposters. Now, I can hear it now: questions of ultimate reality and existence, of the nature of being and knowledge, of presence or absence are now ringing through so many delusional minds. I am not here to debate those topics. I am simply acknowledging the well-known fact that philosophers are not normal. They are different, sometimes exotic creatures that have lived amongst us for thousands of years. Some pseudo-person may rebut, "hath not a philosopher eyes? hath not a philosopher hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" Descartes had to think about it, and then was only able to conclude that he did. Russell was able to confirm the existence of himself and the present king of France who is bald. "If you prick philosophers, do they not bleed? if you tickle them, do they not laugh? if you poison them, do they not die?" Leibniz proved they do, but not always. So, they must not be fully human.
Lest we fall into Moore's paradox, we will move on, careful not to play any of those language games you Wittgenstein-ians are so fond of. Take note, however: this is no psuedo-problem of the reality (whatever that may be) of those so-called philosopher peoples, brought about by our confusion of language and meaning. Real men know what they mean, irregardless of the sense or reference, Mr. Frege, and they don't play games with their words. They have more sense than that. They have more sense than Derrida, the most un-real of all philosophers, who befuddled us all by stating that "the trace is in fact the absolute origin of sense in general. Which amounts to saying once again that there is no absolute origin of sense in general." Derrida has no sense, in general, and at best has only a slight trace of human in him.
And real people get along and agree. Philosophers never get along and seldom agree. Russell revolted against Hegel, not to be outdone by the logical positivists' later revolt against all of metaphysics. And Pappy Derrida tells us that “we must learn to reread what has been thus confused for us” in talking of all the preceding and contemporary fake-people-philosophers. Well, Derrida, I feel as though we have to learn to re-reread everything you tore apart, to find out your hidden agenda. And even then I'm not sure anything will make sense. And another thing, why should we reread everything because you told us to? Real men give some evidence for the claims they make, Pappy. In the end, I think Mr. J.L. Austin was right: removing Derrida from his usual usage is dangerous. For all the real people reading this, friends don't let friends read Derrida. Leave Derrida for the philaliens. Then, they can deconstruct him, rendering him as harmless as Frege's Basic Law V. If only there were a real person to tell ol' Gottlob that what he meant to say was that a 'concept' F is "small" if the objects falling under F cannot be put in 1-1 correspondence with the universe, that is, if: ¬∃R[R is one-one & ∀x∃y(xRy & Fy)]. Then we could have replaced Law V with the weaker claim, "New V", that a 'concept' F and a 'concept' G have the same 'extension' if, and only if neither F nor G is small or ∀x(Fx ≡ Gx). New V could then be shown to be consistent if second-order arithmetic is and sufficient to allow proofs of the axioms of second-order arithmetic. Rock on Boolos. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
You see, real people don't sit around thinking about such things. Descartes, and all philosophers, think too much and therefore are not. It is exactly like Derrida states: "When the other announces itself as such, it presents itself in the dissimulation of itself." Yeah, take that!
And real people don't make up words and ideas. I guess that makes us "un-originary," Mr. Derrida, but at least we are real. We stick to what is already out there. Plenty of words and ideas to go around. And we kinda like it that way. We really don't want to question everything. I don't care why words have meaning. I have never wondered why there is something rather than nothing. I don't know what time it is on the sun. I don't care about the reality of nature or the nature of reality. I know that I am here, wherever here is. And that I am real, whatever real is. And that I never doubted either of the two.
Thus, in clear-as-Derrida fashion, it is obvious that philosophers are not real, since they are forced to question all of these things. I am sure that some of you will disagree, but you are only philosophers in real-people clothing.

2 Comments:

  • Oh my stars and garters. I really have no words to respond to such a myopic little screed, but I'll try. Either (1) you are trying to show how smart you are, (2) you are deliberately trying to make me mad or (3) you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

    I know which one I think it is, but for now I'll just say that I go with Socrates: the unexamined life is not worth living. And somehow I don't think that makes me a non-person. Irregardless.

    By Blogger Brian Trapp, at 9:06 PM EDT  

  • Myopic? You dare say that I lack imagination? HAHAHA. Actually, my intent was purely humor, mixed with a little I-hope-I-don't-show-how-little-I-know-about-philosophy.

    In the words of Cicero: "There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it."

    But Plato stated it best: "There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."

    By Blogger Aaron Hernandez, at 11:46 PM EDT  

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