A real conversation among analytical philosophers:
A: You know Hitchens’s _God is Not Great_ — doesn’t that title convey an existential commitment?
B: Not necessarily, “God” might be the name of a fictional character.
A: Well, the name of several different fiction characters actually.
B: Yes, but some of those fictional characters _are_ great ….
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norbizness 11.20.07 at 7:08 pm
I think I was there as well (call me “N”)
A: Well, the name of several different fiction characters actually.
B: Yes, but some of those fictional characters are great …
N: (shoots self in head)
mathpants 11.20.07 at 7:39 pm
what is the truth value of the utterance:
“the present King of France is hey where’s everybody going?”
Steve LaBonne 11.20.07 at 8:07 pm
If God looked into our minds he would not be able to see there whom we were speaking of. So what’s so great about him?
Frank 11.20.07 at 8:14 pm
If God looked into our minds, as we were looking back–we would be on Thought For The Day.
Patrick 11.20.07 at 9:51 pm
If they were all that great, they wouldn’t be fictional, now would they? QED.
Martin 11.20.07 at 10:16 pm
I think Patrick has just reinvented the ontological proof.
david 11.20.07 at 10:59 pm
I think we all can agree that the merit of an academic field is best evaluated on the basis of the unfunny jokes people make to fill the empty space in a conversation. This is kind of like how you can evaluate whether someone is a total douchebag on the basis of whether he uses a public forum to make unfunny jokes at the expense of other people.
Chris Bertram 11.20.07 at 11:12 pm
Um no, David, if you think that what I was doing. I am an analytic philosopher and, yes, I think that conversation was funny, and I’m aware that I sometimes say similar things, and think it’s kind of nice (and slightly odd) that we do sometimes talk like that.
My partner and I were driving once and she said “Those two cars are identical”. I said nothing. She then said, “Go on, you _wanted_ to object, didn’t you?” She was right.
Get yourself a copy of Anne Fine’s _Taking the Devil’s Advice_, and chill out a bit.
Dave Maier 11.21.07 at 12:16 am
See, Chris, that’s where we differ. One perfectly good meaning of “identical” is “qualitatively identical”; there’s no reason to think she meant “numerically identical,” or even that she needed to qualify her statement in order to disambiguate. So I wouldn’t have felt a desire to object at all. Does that mean that (although still a pedant – I did, after all, know what you meant!) I’m not an analytic philosopher?
On the other hand, I do agree that the original conversation was funny.
shwe 11.21.07 at 12:20 am
But God was great–when he wore the no. 9 shirt for us anyway…
noen 11.21.07 at 12:30 am
You see, for me identical means “Exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different” This qualitative vs numerical distinction strikes as wrong. If your use of a particular word only leads to misunderstandings then wouldn’t it just be better to use a different word?
My partner and I were driving once and she said “Those two cars are identicalâ€. I said nothing.
Now there is an existential commitment.
Phill Hallam-Baker 11.21.07 at 1:43 am
It works better with the correct punctuation:
God is Not! – GREAT!
John Emerson 11.21.07 at 5:46 am
Oi. And didn’t Heidegger say that no two things can be identical, because if they were, they wouldn’t be two things? Thus, no identity.
Don’t bother to correct me, I don’t care.
Chris Bertram 11.21.07 at 7:52 am
Indeed Shwe – nothing fictional about him either!
Clayton 11.21.07 at 2:43 pm
You see, for me identical means “Exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different†This qualitative vs numerical distinction strikes as wrong. If your use of a particular word only leads to misunderstandings then wouldn’t it just be better to use a different word?
My partner and I were driving once and she said “Those two cars are identicalâ€. I said nothing.
Now there is an existential commitment.
Clayton 11.21.07 at 2:43 pm
I am one with noen.
ajay 11.21.07 at 2:58 pm
Partner: “All right then, that one car is identical.”
Chris: (head explodes)
Daniel Koffler 11.21.07 at 7:55 pm
I trust you all know what a goy is — a girl if observed before t, and a boy if perceived after t.
Mike Otsuka 11.24.07 at 7:52 am
Philosophers prove that identical twins can’t possibly exist.
Dhananjay 11.24.07 at 3:59 pm
There’s no reason to suppose we can’t attach predicates to things to which we have no ontological commitment, fictional or not.
A sentence I take to be true: Phlogiston would explain why things oxidize.
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