In a separate discussion, I came across this brilliant (if I say so myself) analogy for capturing various philosophers’ attitudes.
Here is the situation. You are in a crowded room, and you want to cross the room to get to the bar (for a ginger ale, of course). A philosopher is next to you. What advice does he give?
Socrates: “Obviously, nothing is more important than getting to the bar. Why do all these people seem to ignore what is most important? Let us berate them for their foolishness, and convince them that they should be moving toward the bar.”
Hegel: “The crowd is actually a line for the bar. Just be patient and stay in your place.”
Nietzsche: “Let’s creep along the wall, and fantasize about the one who will be able to leap over the crowd.”
Epictetus (the Stoic): “Don’t want to go to the bar. Want to stay where you are.”
Thoreau: “Let’s go out the window and go around.”
Christianity (according to Nietzsche): “Convince everyone that the bar is evil; that should clear the way for us!”
Buddha: “The bar is within you.”
Add more as you like!
July 25, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
Huenemann: “You know, it looks like Socrates and Nietzsche are on this side of the room, I think I’ll stick around here. Are you sure you want to go over to the bar?”
Heide^H^H^H^H^HKleiner: “Now would going over to the bar be an autonomous free act for authentic resolute Dasein or is the thirst simply a product of the they?”
Aquin^H^H^H^H^HKleiner: “The best way to understand the bar is to consider first what it is not.”
Wittgenstein: ” ”
–
^H = Backspace
July 28, 2008 at 1:39 pm |
Now, almost chronologically ordered.
Better Buddha?: “Release your desires for things on this side of the room and then you will be one with the bar.”
Luther: “It is by the grace of the bartender that my faith will bring me to the bar. Anyone who tries to get there on his own effort is the anti-christ and will be forced to drink sulfur at the anti-bar.”
Kant: “It is my duty to take the shortest path that also allows others to take their shortest path.”
Kierkegaard: “Don’t listen to Hegel! The bar is not even in this room. You must choose the most irrational direction then take a leap of faith to a new level in the building. Oh, the best bar is two floors up.”
Marx: “The crowd needs to unite and rush the bar.”
Buber: “It’s a stupid question. Being alone at the bar is no bar at all. A better question is “How can I and thou cross the room together to get to the bar?”
Rand: “Marx and Buber are evil. The gifted logician must be given freedom to get to the bar first and enjoy the best beer. It does not matter that most of the crowd will never get a beer.”
Popper: “We should bring our ideas together in open competition, then engineer the best way for most of us to get to the bar. By the way, let’s not invite Wittgenstein.”
Levinas: “I agree with Buber, but it will take me several obscure essays to say the same thing.”
Derrida: “‘I agree with Levinas and Aquinas, in that, ‘bar’ is a useful symbol to help us choose a path across the room, but there is no bar really.”
Prof. Mike: “It’s a stupid question. I don’t care about the bar. A better question is “How should I treat people on this side of the room?”
(Comments seem to be very sparse lately. I guess I need to add a few ill-informed comments to stir up corrective rebuttals.)
July 28, 2008 at 3:30 pm |
Mel Gison & Heidegger: “Avoid the bar, since the Jews may own the alcohol!”
(Ok, so its not so philosophical, but I find it slightly humourous)
July 28, 2008 at 3:44 pm |
whoops, I spelled Mr. Braveheart Gibson’s name Gison.
July 29, 2008 at 8:34 am |
Nice additions, Vince and Doug! I particularly like Prof. Mike’s.
July 29, 2008 at 8:48 am |
Oh, and Mike’s additions are good, too; that does sound like Huenemann!
July 29, 2008 at 9:39 am |
I’d like to append “Besides, I just brewed a batch of homebrew with some friends, an IPA. Want some?”
July 29, 2008 at 12:00 pm |
I would like someone to fill in a few that I can’t capture (also I hope second attempts are welcome)–
Plato
Aristotle
Augustine
Ockham
Montaigne
Descartes
Locke
Hume
Pascal
James
Camus
Satre
This task is a bit like philosophical haiku.
July 29, 2008 at 12:10 pm |
Russell: “Let me summarize all the ways that people have proposed to cross the room, but I think Wittgenstein knows the way. I just don’t understand anything he says.”
July 29, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
Schopenhauer: The bar is there because it is the object of my will. I must ‘will’ myself through this miserable party to eventually come to the bar where the art of beer can help me forget this lothesome gathering.
July 29, 2008 at 2:32 pm |
Plato – That bar there will come to be and pass away. We will arrive at the real, eternal Bar not by walking, but through dialectic.
Zeno – We will never get to the bar, as doing so would require us traversing an infinite number of midpoints on the way.
Augustine – Go to a bar? Are you crazy? I feel guilty as hell over sneaking a few pears!!
Hume – Why go to the bar? Just because, in the past, I have been able to get a drink there gives me no reasonable guarantee that I’ll be able to get a drink there this time.
Pascal – Either we make it to the bar or we don’t. If we do make it to the bar, we will have a great time sharing spirits. If we don’t make it to the bar, we will have wasted a little effort pushing through the crowd. I wage that it is worth risking it.
Sartre – Hell is other people, so why would I want to go to a bar?
July 29, 2008 at 4:10 pm |
Shakespeare: “To bar or not to bar, that is the question.”
James: “A genuine experience of the bar is inexplicable yet formative and in a certain percentage of the population can be experienced with the aid of ginger ale. In any case the profound nature of these sorts of experiences is hard to dismiss. As psychologists, we should probably go over there and get some ginger ale.”
Montaigne (while reserving ultimate judgment): “To best guarantee our access to the ginger ale, let’s ask Socrates and all these other philosophers to get us some AND we should call in an order of ginger ale AND head over there directly AND…”
Descartes: “Before we can figure out how to go to the bar we need to free our minds of everything except that which we cannot doubt.” <– never makes it to the bar
July 29, 2008 at 4:54 pm |
Kafka: Eveyone has a drink from the bar, but me. All look with horror in my direction. I begin to ask if my zipper is down, but several people drop their glasses and slap their hands over their ears in pain at my screeches. I glance at my reflection in a nearby window. I am a dung beetle and can no longer experience the bar for humans.
July 29, 2008 at 8:50 pm |
These are great! But I think James’s has to be punchier. Something like: “Life is short and my throat is parched. Let us march on! For even if we do not make the bar, it is the difference the march will make to our lives that will make this party burst into significance!”
July 30, 2008 at 12:10 am |
You’re right, I failed to capture his broader sentiment. I haven’t read him except for reference for years.
Seneca (while sneaking ginger ale on the side): “Want not the bar, instead turn your gaze toward the divine.”