Monty Python and Philosophy
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94 At this point the reader might wish to meditate on the fact that many consider W.V. Quine the greatest analytic philosopher. Moreover, as one of the editors pointed out, when Lenny Bruce started to get serious, he ceased being recognizably a comedian and became a philosopher. I count these as major confirmations of my account.
95 Peter Heath takes up this very example in a genuinely funny essay on ‘Nothing’ in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967).
96 William James, Pragmatism (New York: Meridian Books, 1943), p. 163.
97 James’s sense of humor was observed by Gilbert Ryle, who noted that James “restored to philosophy, what had been missing since Hume, that sense of the ridiculous, which saves one from taking seriously everything that is said solemnly,” in A.J. Ayer et al., The Revolution in Philosophy (London: MacMillan, 1963), p. 9.
98 Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World (Chicago: Open Court, 1929), p. 42.
99 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (New York: Random House, 1966), p. 137. Nietzsche continues the thought by saying that philosophers are the “bad conscience of their time.” If we remember that the main and the best political critiques are offered by comedians, we have another startling confirmation of our account.
100 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 47 (§111).
101 No claim about Wittgenstein is small enough to be uncontroversial. I shall simply state dogmatically here that on my reading of Wittgenstein he is really talking about jokes and he thinks grammatical jokes, by revealing grammar that is ordinarily concealed, are genuinely deep. Further elaboration of this thesis awaits the day when there will be a Wittgenstein and Philosophy book in this series.
102 For the first see Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Episode 30, “Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror,” “Gestures to Indicate Pauses in a Televised Talk”; for the antlers it’s Episode 33, “Salad Days,” “Biggles Dictates a Letter.”
103 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969).
104 One of the editors reminds me that we, he and I, do this in our pedagogical characters when teaching philosophy. Exactly so. But in those contexts, I, at any rate, feel like an actor playing in a comedy skit. It isn’t philosophy, really, since the skit is genuinely funny, only no one laughs. Peculiar.
105 I would like to thank this book’s editors, who both solicited and inspired this chapter. They also deserve thanks for accepting it despite the fact that, as old Wittgenstein himself used to say, my words have not infrequently missed my thoughts.
106 The sketch is titled “Gestures to Indicate Pauses in a Televised Talk” (Episode 30, “Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror”).
107 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953), I §60, I §19.
108 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §109. I substitute “struggle” (Kampf ) for the traditional translation, “battle.”
109 A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover, 1936), p. 89.
110 Cleese’s comments are from a lecture of his at Scripps College, 1998. I thank Stephen Erickson for providing a recording of this presentation. Popper and Russell strongly objected to the view that philosophy was entirely constituted by the analysis of ordinary language. Russell sneered at the philosophical “cult of ‘common usage’” (in Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness, 1921-1970, [New York: Free Press, 2000], p. 384) and Popper in his autobiography frequently disclaimed “concentration upon minutiae (upon ‘puzzles’)” or “mere puzzles arising out of the misuse of language” (Unended Quest [Chicago: Open Court, 1982], pp. 90, 16).
111 On the controversy about Heidegger, see for example Hans Sluga, Heidegger’s Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard, 1993). Controversy about Wittgenstein’s personal life began with Bartley’s biography, Wittgenstein (second edition, Chicago: Open Court, 1985). For an unflattering portrait of Wittgenstein and his admirers, as well as a sensible appraisal of the Bartley controversy (in the appendix, pp. 581-586), see Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (New York: Free Press, 1990).
112 For pioneering accounts of anti-communism’s effects on intellectual life in the United States, see Ellen W. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and Frances S. Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 1999). Subsequent accounts addressing philosophy in particular include John McCumber, Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001) and George A. Reisch, How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). On the fashions of existentialism in cold war America, see George Crotkin, Existential America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2003).
113 Broad and Gilbert Ryle are cited in D. Edmonds and J. Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), pp. 71 and 31. On the mimicry of Wittgenstein’s students, see p. 34.
114 God exists, it later turns out, “by two falls to a submission.”
115 This chapter was transcribed and edited from audiotape. Sections headings were added for readability—Eds.
116 !—Eds.
117 I have treated this distinction elsewhere, most prominently in my Baldwin, B., “Instinction and Distinction Reconsidered,” Philosophical Gyrations, 1986, pp. 111-145, an essay which substantially revises and (I admit) corrects the earlier treatment in my dissertatio, “Five Aspects of the Instinct-Distinct Problem,” a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy, Grosvenor Square College, by Michael Baldwin, 1971.
118 For your convenience, the talk itself is reproduced in the chapter following this one. Yes, in this very book.
119 This chapter is the text of a presentation I have given many times at many places, including prestigious universities and even more prestigious pubs. It’s also the topic of Chapter 20 of this volume, which is another reason to include it here. When I present this talk I read a bit and then show a clip (there are eight altogether). For the purposes of this book, though, except for The Bruces’ Philosophers Song (from Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl ), I’ve replaced the clips themselves with their sources. So, to get the full experience, secure the clips beforehand and play them as you read. Some of you, however, will be able to play the clips in your head, such is your fandom. Try to get out more, okay?
120 This presentation was first given to the Undergraduate Philosophy Club at Virginia Tech, who solicited it in 1993. Undergraduate philosophy majors generally don’t get enough credit for the good they bring to the world, so let me note here that this presentation, and in a way this book, started with them.
Volume 19 in the series Popular Culture and Philosophy™
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monty Python and philosophy : nudge nudge, think think! / edited by
Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch. p. cm.—(Popular culture and philosophy ; 19)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-812-69698-1
1. Monty Python (Comedy troupe) I. Hardcastle, Gary L.
II. Reisch, George A., 1962- III. Series.
PN2599.5.T54M65 2006
791.45’028092241—dc22
2006003083