[lit-ideas] Re: Back to Popper (and further back to Hume)

A definition? you serious? Sir, you must have been delivered The Wrong Box, this is a golly good thread, indeed, but you'd better consider that this mail came from Suebia, home of Hoelderlin & Hegel ("Ich jedenfalls habe nie etwas so Flaches gedacht..."), where we don't sell any silly definitions as wrappers, definitions are almost more ridiculous than those silly little popperian probability boxes...enough! It was only the question of a coloured animal that had brought the bai ma lun stuff by Gongsun Long to my mind, rather embarrassing stuff, an English version of which you may find at http://faculty.vassar.edu/brvannor/GongsunYangZhu.pdf
What I meant to say was that, while by GOd's Grace all swans are white swans, only a narrow-minded pea-counter would take the occurrence of one or more black swans as evidence, or even proof, against that truth.. pshaw! - no pasaran!
As a consolation, here's a poetical container with a whole flock of black swans within: 

Vollmond

Gelbes Eis
Und gruene Nebel.

Kranke Kallablueten leuchten.
Von den bleichen Bechern rinnet
Goldnes Oel in sanften Stroemen.

Warmer Moder,
Nackte Schaedel.
Ueber weisse Marmorwuesten
Fliehen lautlos
Schwarze Schwaene

(Max Dauthendey)
as there's enough room in that box, the bail may be spared and be spent in the pub 

Joerg,
Boxed in Suebia




Donal McEvoy schrieb:

--- joerg benesch <jgruel@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Meanwhile, in the unboxed world, it's obvious all real swans are white: a black swan isn't a swan. 


Ah - a definitional argument according to which a black swan is
(definitionally) a logically impossible occurence. What boxed-in tripe.
Donal

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