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November 25, 2005
Christmas with Ludwig
Distinguished philosopher of psychology, Chris Mole, (who also happens to be one of my best friends from grad school) read my old post about the singability of the last proposition of the Tractatus, and sent me this email containing an entire song. I've been meaning to post it for a while, so here it is:
I was speaking to my brother the other day about blogs and this caused me to look at yours, and thereby to learn about the singability of the seventh proposition of the Tractatus. I mentioned this to him, and he spontaneously composed the following, which I thought might amuse you:To the tune of Good King Wenceleslas:
Ludwig Wittgenstein looked out
Over rainy Oxford.
Said, ‘Now there can be no doubt,
Russell’s thought is no good.
World is all that is the case,
That shall be my mission;
For philosophy that’s based
On seven propositions.
Tractatus is just the thing
To get people talking.
Rigorous logic-chopping:
Oh, it will be corking!
Wait till Frege gets a peak:
Debate may well turn violent.
But whereof he cannot speak,
He had best stay silent.'
The author is Chris' brother, Tom Mole, who teaches English at McGill. Maybe one day I'll be able to persuade Chris to let me post his (hilarious) poem about Scott Soames, or even better, an mp3 of him performing it. And then there's Josh Greene's Benacerraf song...and of course, Adam Morton's haiku.
Posted by logican at November 25, 2005 12:10 PM
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Comments
I sure hope this post succeeds in shaming them into letting you publish their works, because you can't just make reference to poems and songs about Soames and Benacerraf without posting them! Or at least e-mailing them privately...
Posted by: Kenny Easwaran at November 27, 2005 02:52 AM
yes...emailing them privately. (add me to the Soames and Benacerraf sing along email list)
Posted by: Jonah N. Schupbach at November 29, 2005 04:50 PM
Why would Ludwig be looking out over Oxford? He's a Cantabridgian. It's not because "Oxford" rhymes with "good"!
Posted by: Daniel Nolan at December 1, 2005 09:43 AM
Dude, haven't you ever heard of poetic license?
Posted by: Gillian Russell at December 4, 2005 10:47 PM