Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar

by Thomas Cathcart

  A multinational corporation advertises for a secretary.

  A golden retriever applies for the job, passes the typing test, and is granted an interview. The human-resources manager asks, “Do you speak any foreign languages?”

  And the golden retriever says, “Meow.”

  RELATIVITY OF VALUES

  In our own day, Michel Foucault focused on another kind of relativity—the relativity of cultural values to social power. Our cultural values, particularly what we count as normal, determine and are determined by how society exercises control. Who counts as mentally ill? Who gets to determine that? What does it mean to be designated mentally ill for those who are so designated? What does it mean for those who get to control them? And who are those who get to control them? The answers to these questions change over time as the power arrangements in society shift. In one age, the priests are the controlling group; in another, the doctors. This has implications for how the so-called mentally ill get treated. The bottom line is that the values we think are timeless and absolute are really in constant historical flux relative to who has power and how it gets used.

  Pat: Mike, I’m calling you from the freeway on my new cell phone.

  Mike: Be careful, Pat. They just said on the radio that there’s a nut driving the wrong way on the freeway.

  Pat: One nut? Hell, there are hundreds of them!

  From the standpoint of pure reason, Pat is just as right as the man on the radio. Relative to him, everyone else is going the wrong way. So why is the joke a joke instead of simply a clash of two points of view? Because of Foucault’s point, which is that the state ultimately gets to decide what’s the right way to go.

  Another concern of philosophers since Plato has been the relativity between temporal values and eternal values. And once again a joke puts it in perspective:

  There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very much aggrieved because he had worked very hard for his money, and he wanted to be able to take it with him to Heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth.

  An angel heard his plea and appeared to him. “Sorry, but you can’t take your wealth with you.” The man implored the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules.

  The angel reappeared and announced that God had decided to make an exception and was allowing him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathered his largest suitcase, filled it with pure gold bars, and placed it beside his bed.

  Soon afterward the man died and showed up at the pearly gates. St. Peter, seeing the suitcase, said, “Hold on, you can’t bring that in here!”

  But the man explained to St. Peter that he had permission and asked him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter returned, saying, “You’re right. You are allowed one carryon bag, but I’m supposed to check its contents before letting it through.”

  St. Peter opened the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaimed, “You brought pavement?”

  ABSOLUTE RELATIVITY

  Much philosophical error stems from treating relative points of view as though they were absolute. Thomas Jefferson, borrowing from the British philosopher John Locke, found the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be “self-evident,” presumably because he thought they were universal and absolute. But this is clearly not so self-evident to a person from another culture—say, a radical Islamist who thinks pursuing happiness is exactly what characterizes an infidel.

  The opposite error is possible too. We may attribute relativity to something that is absolute.

  The lookout on a battleship spies a light ahead off the starboard bow. The captain tells him to signal the other vessel, “Advise you change course twenty degrees immediately!”

  The answer comes back, “Advise you change course twenty degrees immediately!”

  The captain is furious. He signals, “I am a captain. We are on a collision course. Alter your course twenty degrees now!”

  The answer comes back, “I am a seaman second class, and I strongly urge you to alter your course twenty degrees.”

  Now the captain is beside himself with rage. He signals, “I am a battleship!”

  The answer comes back, “I am a lighthouse.”

  Keep in mind these deep thoughts on relativity the next time you send out for Chinese food—or, as the Chinese call it, food.

  DIMITRI: So, Tasso, you seem to be one of those guys who thinks there is no absolute truth, that all truth is relative.

  TASSO: Right.

  DIMITRI: Are you sure of that?

  TASSO: Absolutely.

  {X}

  Metaphilosophy

  The philosophy of philosophy. Not to be confused with the

  philosophy of the philosophy of philosophy.

  DIMITRI: I’m really getting the hang of this now, Tasso.

  TASSO: The hang of what?

  DIMITRI: Philosophy, of course!

  TASSO: You call this philosophy?

  The prefix meta, which basically means “beyond and inclusive of all below,” pops up all over the place in philosophical discourse, like in metalanguage, a language that can be used to describe language. Or in metaethics, which investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. So it was only a meta of time before metaphilosophy appeared on the scene.

  Metaphilosophy wrestles with that burning question, “What is philosophy?” You’d think philosophers would have known the answer to that one going in. It makes you wonder how they knew they wanted to become philosophers in the first place. We never hear about hairdressers pondering the question, “What is hairdressing?” If a hairdresser doesn’t know what hairdressing is by now, he’s in the wrong line of work. We sure as hell wouldn’t want him giving our wives an updo.

  Nonetheless, modern philosophers are continually redefining philosophy. In the twentieth century, Rudolf Carnap and the logical positivists defined away a huge hunk of philosophy when they announced that metaphysics is meaningless. They said the sole task of philosophy is to analyze scientific sentences.

  And Carnap’s contemporary, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the godfather of ordinary language philosophy, went even further. He thought his first major book had brought the history of philosophy to a close, because he had demonstrated that all philosophical propositions were meaningless—including his own. He was so convinced that he had closed the book on philosophy that he settled down to teach elementary school. A few years later he reopened the book of philosophy with a new conception of its purpose—therapy, of all things. By that, Ludwig meant that if we straighten out confusing language, we will cure ourselves of the blues brought on by nonsensical philosophical questions.

  In our own day, “modal logicians”—logicians who differentiate between statements that are possibly true and those that are necessarily true—worry about which category their own statements fall into. It sounds to us like metastatements all the way down.

  It is in this tradition of metaphilosophy that we find Seamus.

  Seamus was about to go on his first date, so he asked his brother, the ladies’ man, for advice. “Give me some tips on how to talk to them.”

  “Here’s the secret,” said his brother. “Irish girls like to talk about three things: food, family, and philosophy. If you ask a girl what she likes to eat, it shows you’re interested in her. If you ask her about her family, it shows your intentions are honorable. If you discuss philosophy, it shows you respect her intelligence.”

  “Gee, thanks,” said Seamus. “Food, family, philosophy. I can handle that.”

  That night as he met the young lady, Seamus blurted out, “Do you like cabbage?”

  “Uh, no,” said the puzzled girl.

  “Do you have a brother?” asked Seamus.

  “No.”

  “Well, if you had a brother, would he like cabbage?”

  That’s philosophy.

  Contemporary philosopher William Vallicella w
rites, “Metaphilosophy is the philosophy of philosophy. It is itself a branch of philosophy, unlike the philosophy of science, which is not a branch of science, or the philosophy of religion, which is not a branch of religion.”

  It is statements like this that have made Vallicella such a hot ticket on the party circuit.

  The deep, underlying thesis of this book is right once again. If there is metaphilosophy, there must be metajokes.

  A traveling salesman was driving in the country when his car broke down. He hiked several miles to a farmhouse, and asked the farmer if there was a place he could stay overnight. “Sure,” said the farmer, “my wife died several years ago, and my two daughters are twenty-one and twenty-three, but they’re off to college, and I’m all by myself, so I have lots of room to put you up.”

  Hearing this, the salesman turned around and started walking back toward the highway.

  The farmer called after him, “Didn’t you hear what I said? I have lots of room.”

  “I heard you,” said the salesman, “but I think I’m in the wrong joke.”

  And, of course, the ur-metajoke:

  A blind man, a Lesbian, and a frog walk into a bar. The barkeep looks at them and says, “What is this—a joke?”

  And finally, a politically incorrect metajoke. Just as metaphilosophy requires the metaphilosopher to have some knowledge of what philosophy is generally understood to be, metajokes require knowledge of what a joke is generally understood to be—in this case, a Polish joke.

  A guy walks into a crowded bar and announces that he’s got a terrific Polish joke to tell. But before he can start, the barkeep says, “Hold it right there, buddy. I’m Polish.”

  And the guy says, “Okay, I’ll tell it very, very slowly.”

  DIMITRI: So we’ve spent the whole afternoon discussing philosophy and you don’t even know what philosophy is?

  TASSO: Why do you ask?

  Summa Time: A Conclusion

  A cogent and comprehensive review of

  everything we have learned today

  Tasso takes the mike at the Acropolis Comedy Club.

  TASSO: But seriously, folks . . . Did you hear about the British empiricist who told his wife she was nothing but a collection of sense data?

  “Oh, yeah?” she said. “How do you think it feels going to bed every night with a man who’s got no ding an sich?”

  I’m not kidding, I was married for ten years before I realized that my wife was all existence and no essence. I mean her esse really was percipi.

  What’sa matter, folks? It’s so quiet in here, you could hear a tree fall in the forest . . . even if you weren’t there! Schopenhauer said there would be nights like this.

  Kids today, huh? The other day my son asked me for the keys to the car, and I said, “Son, in the best of all possible worlds you’d have your own car.”

  And he said, “But, Pop, this isn’t the best of all possible worlds.”

  And I said, “So go live with your mother!”

  By the way, a funny thing happened on my way over here tonight: I stepped in the same river . . . twice!

  Hey, the other day Plato and a platypus walked into a bar. The bartender gave the philosopher a quizzical look, and Plato said, “What can I say? She looked better in the cave.”

  DIMITRI (from audience): Give him the hook!

  GREAT MOMENTS IN

  THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

  GLOSSARY

  analytic statement: A statement that is true by definition. For example, “All ducks are birds” is analytic because part of what we mean by “duck” is that it is a member of the bird family. “All birds are ducks,” on the other hand, is not analytic because duckiness is not part of the definition of “bird.” Obviously, “All ducks are ducks,” is analytic, as is “All birds are birds.” It is heartening to see the practical help that philosophy can provide to other disciplines, such as ornithology. Contrast synthetic statement.

  a posteriori: Known by experience; known empirically. In order to know that some beers taste good but are not filling, you would have to experience/chug at least one beer that tastes good and is not filling. Contrast a priori.

  a priori: Known prior to experience. For example, one can know, prior to ever watching the show, that all American Idol contestants believe they are singers because American Idol is a singing contest for people who—for reasons best known to themselves—believe they are singers. Contrast a posteriori.

  deductive logic: Reasoning from a set of premises to a conclusion that can be logically inferred from them. The most basic form of deductive logic is the syllogism, e.g., “All comedians are philosophers; Larry, Moe, and Curly are comedians; therefore, Larry, Moe, and Curly are philosophers.” Contrast inductive logic.

  deontological ethics: Ethics based on the theory that moral obligation rests on duty (from the Greek deon), quite apart from the practical consequences of actions. For example, a political leader who believes his highest duty is to protect the public from terrorist attacks might argue that in order to fulfill this duty he has to plant hidden microphones in everybody’s bedrooms, regardless of the consequences for your sex life.

  ding an sich: Thing-in-itself, as opposed to the sensory representations of a thing. The idea here is that an object is more than simply the sum of its sense data (i.e., what it looks, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels like), and that there is some thing-in-itself behind all this sense data that is separate from the data. Some philosophers believe this notion belongs in the same category as unicorns and Santa Claus.

  emotivism: The ethical philosophy that moral judgments are neither true nor false, but merely express our approval or disapproval of an action or of an individual who performs a particular action or set of actions. In this philosophy, the statement, “Saddam is an evildoer,” simply means, “Saddam is not my cup of tea. I don’t know; I’ve just never cared for the guy.”

  empiricism: The view that experience, particularly sensory experience, is the primary—or the sole—path to knowledge. “How do you know there are unicorns?” “Because I just saw one in the garden!” Now, that’s what we call x-treme empiricism. Contrast rationalism.

  essentialism: The philosophy that objects have essences, or essential qualities, which can be distinguished from their nonessential, or accidental, qualities. For example, it is an essential quality of a married man that he has a wife (possibly a male wife.) But it is only an accidental quality of a married man that he wears a wedding ring. He could still be a married man without wearing one, although his wife might argue the point.

  existentialism: A school of philosophy that seeks to describe the actual conditions of our individual human existence rather than abstract, universal human qualities. Sartre’s definition was “the view that existence precedes essence,” meaning that the primary fact about us is our existence; we create our own essence. This has profound implications for existentialist ethics, which exhorts us to always live “authentically,” fully conscious of our mortality and undeluded about the choices we make—in short, the kind of preoccupations that are best explored over coffee and cigarettes in a Parisian café, as compared to, say, over a conveyor belt on a Detroit assembly line.

  inductive logic: Reasoning from specific instances to a general conclusion that is broader than what can be logically inferred from the instances. For example, our observation that the sun rose today, yesterday, and all the days we know about before yesterday gives rise to the conclusion that the sun has always come up and will continue to come up every day, even though this cannot be logically inferred from the known instances. Note: This example will not work for our readers at the North Pole. Contrast deductive logic.

  infinite regress argument: An argument that a purported explanation is unsatisfactory because it gives rise to the need for an infinite series of such “explanations.” For example, to explain the existence of the world by positing a “maker” raises the question of how to explain the existence of the maker. If another maker is posit
ed, the question becomes, “Who made that maker?” And so on, ad infinitum. Or ad nauseam, whichever comes first.

  koan: In Zen Buddhism, a riddle designed to shock us into sudden enlightenment. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” seems to do the trick; “What is the sound of two hands clapping?” does not. See also satori.

  Law of Noncontradiction: Aristotle’s logical principle that a thing can not be both A and not-A at the same time in the same respect. It would be self-contradictory to say, “Your pants are on fire, and, what’s more, your pants are not on fire.” (Under the circumstances, Aristotle’s Law notwithstanding, it couldn’t hurt to hose yourself down.)

  noumenal: Pertaining to things as they are in themselves, as opposed to how they appear to our senses. See ding an sich . . . but then again, you can’t, can you? Contrast phenomenal.

  ordinary language philosophy: A philosophical movement that seeks to understand philosophical concepts by examining ordinary linguistic usage. According to philosophers of this school, many questions that have befuddled deep thinkers for millennia are only befuddling because of the ambiguities and logical mistakes inherent in the questions themselves. This marked the end of the Age of Befuddlement.

  paradox: a) A piece of reasoning using apparently sound logic and apparently true premises that nevertheless results in a contradiction; b) any two physicians.

  phenomenal: Pertaining to our sensory experience of objects. “That is a red hat” refers to our sensory experience of an object that appears red and hatlike. The locution, “Wow! Your red hat is phenomenal!” on the other hand, may be a red herring. Contrast noumenal