Notes:
Written 1986, revised 1988 and 2001.
Below is a line by line explanation of the poem. Each line is
supposed to have a twist, a catch, a contradiction, a joke or a pun.
- My ontology does not exist.
Ontology is the study of existence, of being, of what there is, and of what
kinds of things there are and are not.
- I know nothing of epistemology.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, of what is known and how;
and of belief and why believed.
- Is history of philosophy just a passing fad?
At times, philosophers have argued that it is important to study the history
of philosophy.
- Would ethics be good for me?
Ethics is the study of good and evil, right and wrong, ought and ought not,
morals, and whether there are, or even can be, such things.
- Plato's broad form casts a shadow.
Plato, whose nickname means "the broad" or "the wide" created the
Theory of Forms, illustrated by the famous metaphor of unseen but real things
casting the shadows that we see on the cave walls.
- The Cartesians only think they exist.
Descartes argued: "I think, therefore I am."
- Emotivists, they just don't excite me,
Emotivists claim that actions spring only from the emotions, like anger, love and
excitement (and not from reason).
- And I can't see being an empiricist.
Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from the senses,
especially from sight.
- Determinism coerces my dissent.
Determinism is the view that all our beliefs and actions are nothing more than the
regular motions of molecules, and free will is an illusion.
- I learned physics prior to metaphysics.
(Academic) Metaphysics (not to be confused with another common use of the term)
is the study of what there is and how we know it (see 1 and 2 above),
plus other topics like time. Metaphysics logically comes before physics.
- Existentialism, being what it is, alienated me,
Existentialism is a worldview of the human condition, which finds existence empty of
meaning and significance, and finds each person seperated or alienated from one other,
from Nature, from themselves, from god.
- And the worst-written works are in aesthetics.
Aesthetics is the study of beauty and ugliness, as in art and literature,
and of whether there are, or even can be, such things.
- Actually, modality is unnecessary or impossible.
Modal logic organizes arguments involving necessity, possibility,
impossibility and actuality.
- Logic is at best a non-contradictory oxymoron.
An oxymoron is a often-humorous pair of (apparently) contradictory words,
like "army intelligence" or "rational theologian" or
"non-contradictory oxymoron." Logic is built on that
law of non-contradiction.
- Either semantics or "semantics" is meaningless,
Semantics is the study of the meaning (in general) of words and sentences, and how
that meaning underlies truth, falsity, and inference. Semanticists
make an important distinction between the meaning of a word and the meaning of
the same word when it occurs between quotation marks. Semantics asks about the
meaning of "meaning".
- And some philosophers despise wisdom.
The word "philosopher" is Greek for lover of wisdom.
See also The Teaching Assistant's Lament. |
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