Friday, November 18, 2005

Philosopher's Humour 4

Theory of Voting – 11/11/05

1. Professor: “Do you know what Euclidean means?”
Ian: “Of or relating to Euclid”

2. [Having drawn a complicated diagram on the board] “And if we combine… no… that way madness lies”

Moral Philosophy Seminar – 14/11/05

1. Susan Wolf: “When I said my daughter was getting a SUV over my dead body, I didn’t mean it literally”

2. [Wolf again, I think…] “I’m not wholly unsympathetic to this response, though I prefer not to see it as an objection”

Berlin Lectures – 15/11/05

1. Allen Wood: “I thank you for your warm welcome and tough question. Because that’s the way philosophers welcome each other, by giving each other a hard time”

Political Theory Graduate Workshop – 17/11/05

1. [In reference to the title ‘On the Notion of Basic Structure’] Foreign presenter asks “Is it bad English?”; Dr Butt (chair) “I don’t know, I can’t tell”

2. “A Cohensian… Is that the opposite of Rawlsian here?… Cohen himself, let’s say”

Herbert Spencer Lecture (Jonathan Glover) – 18/11/05

1. “When people don’t know what to believe, they don’t call for philosophers. It’s not an option on the emergency services.”

2. [Having just talked about Creationists and Communists who didn’t think Germany was a threat in 1939] “If you’re determined enough, and have little sense of plausibility, you can defend any belief”

3. “If you believe Prince Charles is invading your mind, the problem with you isn’t just that you’re poor at testing evidence for your hypotheses”

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