Subtle Philosophy
I realized in class today why we philosophers sometimes get accused of not having a sense of humor; it's because we generally make jokes tongue-in-cheek while yet saying something meaningful. Take Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" as a classic case. What's funny is that I convinced my dad to buy this very small book on CD (bad eyes, no large print copy). So we get into the car and I toss it into the CD player, and the entire way through I'm just cracking up. But in actuality, it's a very thoughtful book on the nature and development of our propensity to lie and lie outright. But while creating such a work, through an intellegent use of diction and prose, you have what is actually a very humurous work of philosophy.
Maybe a lot of humor doesn't have to be meaningful. Keep in mind that I'm not saying this sense of humor doesn't have a purpose or is simply silly frivolity. The comic strip jokes or the e-mail forwards are really funny, and they strike at the truth of the matter ("it's funny...cause it's true..."), but they don't have to be meaningful in the sense just described. It's the difference between an analytic, a priori, statement and a synthetic statement. The "truth" of the matter in everyday humor is presupposed in the build up to the joke itself. Everyone knows that manager's are either 1) evil or 2) idiots, and that's why Dilbert is funny. But the use of the term 'meaningful' above is to say that there is something new developed in the course of making the joke. Given, it's actually the other way around, that the joke is made in the course developing some argument. But the point is that it can be both funny and a meaningful example or analogy.
Take the case of what happened today; we were discussing what constituted sufficient conditions to assign belief as a propositional attitude to an individual's sentence ("DJL believes that 'getting a tropical bird is a good idea'."). It was questioned whether the condition that "If the agent was disposed to assert the proposition, then he would assert it" sufficed to capture the nature of "believes." But this doesn't include any conviction or truth ascription for the individual towards the proposition. So the professor, to elucidate this point, said, "I can assert that 'G.W.Bush is the greatest president ever' but I definately don't have to hold that to be true." At this point, most of you are probably saying, "But, JBP, that's not funny. I thought you were going to give an example of philosophical humor." Well, what can I say...("you had to be there"?!?)...Philosophical humor is sardonic, sometimes cynical, and occassionally a complex puzzle which takes a moment to realize, but at heart, it's a humor that's found through the interrelation of ideas. Rarely, though possible, does this elicit the hearty belly laugh. But that doesn't mean that it's not still funny. The problem is that people get so wrapped up at the meaningful development of some idea, they miss the true absurdity of potential implications. Because, really, it's all bullshit. So people take philosophers to be serious all the time, to be saying something profound and meaningful. Well, we sometimes are, but even then we're still on the level with a quick wit and, mostly, making fun of ourselves. This is why some random sentence in the middle of a paragraph from some Nabakov book became one of my favorite quotes;
Maybe a lot of humor doesn't have to be meaningful. Keep in mind that I'm not saying this sense of humor doesn't have a purpose or is simply silly frivolity. The comic strip jokes or the e-mail forwards are really funny, and they strike at the truth of the matter ("it's funny...cause it's true..."), but they don't have to be meaningful in the sense just described. It's the difference between an analytic, a priori, statement and a synthetic statement. The "truth" of the matter in everyday humor is presupposed in the build up to the joke itself. Everyone knows that manager's are either 1) evil or 2) idiots, and that's why Dilbert is funny. But the use of the term 'meaningful' above is to say that there is something new developed in the course of making the joke. Given, it's actually the other way around, that the joke is made in the course developing some argument. But the point is that it can be both funny and a meaningful example or analogy.
Take the case of what happened today; we were discussing what constituted sufficient conditions to assign belief as a propositional attitude to an individual's sentence ("DJL believes that 'getting a tropical bird is a good idea'."). It was questioned whether the condition that "If the agent was disposed to assert the proposition, then he would assert it" sufficed to capture the nature of "believes." But this doesn't include any conviction or truth ascription for the individual towards the proposition. So the professor, to elucidate this point, said, "I can assert that 'G.W.Bush is the greatest president ever' but I definately don't have to hold that to be true." At this point, most of you are probably saying, "But, JBP, that's not funny. I thought you were going to give an example of philosophical humor." Well, what can I say...("you had to be there"?!?)...Philosophical humor is sardonic, sometimes cynical, and occassionally a complex puzzle which takes a moment to realize, but at heart, it's a humor that's found through the interrelation of ideas. Rarely, though possible, does this elicit the hearty belly laugh. But that doesn't mean that it's not still funny. The problem is that people get so wrapped up at the meaningful development of some idea, they miss the true absurdity of potential implications. Because, really, it's all bullshit. So people take philosophers to be serious all the time, to be saying something profound and meaningful. Well, we sometimes are, but even then we're still on the level with a quick wit and, mostly, making fun of ourselves. This is why some random sentence in the middle of a paragraph from some Nabakov book became one of my favorite quotes;
"But people won't dare to laugh, and you will be secretly annoyed at their dead-earnest respect."
posted by J.B.P. at 4:08 PM
1 Comments:
Great post. I don't have that respect as much because I am constantly an idiot outside of also having an intellectual humor. But I see how you do.
So you remember how I told you to read Rand. Well I stand by that because I said it brings up some good controversial points, and isn't really philosophy but is close. But this quote just had me laughing.
Francis Fukuyama: "Ayn Rand’s ideas appeal to mostly male adolescents and is not a serious approach that can be dignified by the word “philosophy.” They played no role in my thinking or those of other neoconservatives."
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