Plan B Forum

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

There's nothing Nietzsche 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.

Glad we've gotten off to such a weighty intellectual start in this forum.

It had to be done...

And who better to start it?

The Hatch has started doing Philosophy at School this year.

And as Gob and I always reply ... "Or has she".

The Hen wrote:The Hatch has started doing Philosophy at School this year.

And as Gob and I always reply ... "Or has she".

Tell her for me that Hegel has a definate moral preference over Kant.

The study of philosophy is a great thing. Everyone who can handle it should be encouraged to do it.

It brings no material rewards. Unless one is fortunate enough to land a professorship in philosophy or to author some bestseller on the subject or to find some other (rare) way of making money from it, one will get nothing in the material world out of it.

It generally brings no comfort. On the contrary, it tends to induce a sense of having no belonging.

Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other men are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other men are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

(Tao Te Ching (trans. Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, 1972), ch. 20.)

Still, it is among the most rewarding pursuits out there. "The unclouded eye is better, no matter what it sees." (Approximately from Frank Herbert.)

The study of philosophy forces one to confront the difficult issues. And what could be more rewarding than that?