[lit-ideas] Is This A Dagger I See Before Me?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:09:35 EST
Apples in the Basket
McCreery "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?"
-- And so far so good.
From you can make "the closest of friends" -- and no better way, trust me,
than get that _via_ philosophy. (Only philosophers who have studied Aristotle's
"Ethica Nichomachea" understand _philosophically_ was Moore and Russell in
this passage below -- what 'the very closest of friends' *means*)
-- From
Jonathan Miller has this exchange between London-born (Irish ancestry)
philosopher G. E. Moore and Welsh (well, Monmoutshire-born) philosopher B. W.
E,
Lord Russell as they meet in Cambridge's Trinity:
CD Angel CD ZDM 0777 7 64771 21.
“Portrait from Memory”
MILLER:
“The British philosopher Bertrand Russell was reminiscing on television a
great deal in those days”.
Presenter:
This is the BBC Third Programme. We have in the studio Bertrand Russell, who
talks to us in the series,
“Sense, Perception, & Nonsense, Number Seven:
Is this a dagger I see before me?”
Bertrand Russell.
Bertrand Russell:
"One of the advantages of living in Great Court, Trinity, I seem to recall,
was the fact that one could pop across, at any time of the day or night,
into trap of the then young G. E. Moore, into a logical falsehood, by
means of a cunning semantic subterfuge.
I recall one occasion with particular vividness. I had popped
across and have knocked upon his door.
“Come in,” he said.
I decided to wait a while, in order to test the validity of his proposition.
“Come in,” he said once again.
“Very well,” I replied, “if that is in fact truly what you wish.”
I opened the door accordingly, and went it. And there was Moore,
seated by the fire, with a basket upon his knees. “Moore,” I said,
“Do you have any apples in that basket?”.
“No,” he replied, and smiled seraphically, as was his wont. I
decided to try a different logical tack.
“Moore,” I said, “do you, then, have SOME apples in that basket?”
.
“No,” he replied, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which
I had
but one way out.
“Moore,” I said, “do you, *then*, have APPLES in that basket?”.
“Yes,” he replied.
And, from that day forth, we remained the very closest of friends."
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