[lit-ideas] Anscombe's "Insane"

McCreery Calls Her Insane. 
 
"That's rude"
 
McCreery:
 
"But since I am more interested in philosophers' games than in football,  I
will let that pass for the moment." ...

----

"Everyday conversation: "The dog is eating the rug." "Make him  stop."
Philosopher's conversation: "A knows that 'The dog is eating the rug'  only
if the dog is eating the rug." And so?"
 
----
 
Sorry I have to make this argumentum ad hominum, but what is a good of a  
mailing list if we can bear with the apathies of the world and react  
ani-apathetically to things?
 
---
 
Anyway, I spent like the last hour online trying to find this 'sketch' on  
the "I see a tree" parody. As I remember, it was a well-written and funny thing 
 
on "I know it's a tree", etc. As I remember it was on a blog some time ago, 
but  haven't been able to find it. Help welcome. It was a sort of dialogue a la 
 "Beyond the Fringe" "Apples in the Basket", but all about how you know that 
you  are seeing a tree. Maybe the name of the skit was 'trees'. Anyway, it all 
arises  from Witters,
 

"I am," Wittgenstein writes, "sitting with a philosopher in the garden; 
he says again and again, 'I know that's a tree,' pointing to a tree  that
 is near us.  Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell  him, 'This 
fellow isn't insane.  We are only doing philosophy" (On  Certainty [trans. 
G.E.M. Anscombe and D. Paul [New York: Harper, 1969], 467)."
 
Even with Anscombe's 'fellow' etc -- the thing _fails_ to *amuse* me in the  
sense that the other skit did. Perhaps someone should rewrite it or retrieve 
the  "Apple in the Basket" sketch. That was a good one too, although dealing 
with  apples, rather than trees.
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 



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