View Single Post
Old 03-16-2006, 07:52 PM  
Libertine
sex dwarf
 
Libertine's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 17,860
Philosophy in action...

Quote:
Originally Posted by After Shock Media
A little story to explain philosophy.

A student was taking a test in philosophy. The teacher wanted them to explain on the paper why the chair she was standing next to does not really exist. The whole class groaned except one student who scribbled his name on the paper and one single line as the answer. He wrote "what chair".
That student got an A.

Lesson over.
Nope, he got an F. He didn't account for his own likely perception of the chair, his own likely hearing of the teacher talking to him, the teacher's likely perception of the chair, the relations of language and meaning between them. I could go on. He could have taken the skeptic route, putting all perception into reasonable doubt, but he would have needed to argue that point.

Furthermore, the teacher actually didn't ask for philosophy, she asked for sophistry (assuming she wasn't a dogmatic Academic skeptic), since she asked for arguments for arguments' sake, rather than a rigorous investigation of the world.

As you can see, philosophy is annoying ;)
__________________
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
Libertine is offline   Share thread on Digg Share thread on Twitter Share thread on Reddit Share thread on Facebook Reply With Quote