Math assholery 17 Feb 200824 Nov 2022 In particular, see the final panel… Cf. also here on Private Languages in philosophy Humor
Humor Also, you don’t always get what you want 1 Dec 201022 Jun 2018 Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Read More
Book On rules 1 Jun 2009 My friend and colleague William Grey gave me a copy of F. M. Cornford’s Microcosmographia Academica, in which I read this passage which is so apposite to the modern day: The principle of Discipline (including Religion) is that ‘there must be some rules‘. If you inquire the reason, you will… Read More
I mean that I didn’t know that Plantinga was a mathematician. Damn inscrutable English language. You’d think I’d have some ability with it, considering my surname. But no.
I really like the one on private languages in philosophy, it reminds me of a wonderful anecdote that I read years ago in John Passmore’s One Hundred Years of Philosophy. I no longer own this book and am quoting from memory so please forgive me if I don’t get it exactly right. A British philosophy once asked a German college, at a conference, why there was no English translation of Heidigger’s Sein and Zeit. His German friend replied, “Because it hasn’t been translated into German yet.” (Before somebody posts to say that there are now two Enlish translation, I know this and the anecdote obviously predates 1962)
What an obvious fallacy in the 5th panel. $5 times $1 is not 50,000 cents; it’s 50,000 square cents. Next time you’re in the USA, you just try passing off square cents at the store. Or don’t. Actually, clerks sometimes call the cops when somebody tries to give them a $2 bill.
As to the answer being Jesus: I don’t know if you have these Down Under, but there’s a perennially mildly popular bumper sticker here, saying “Christ is the answer”. I don’t know why no one has made a modified one: ‘”Christ!” is the answer.’
I think becaue people value their car’s windows and finish… I want one that says: “What was the question again?” and another: “God: I don’t know and neither do you”.