Prof. Perspectives Meets Monty Python
Long ago, in my high school days, I was faced with an exam question on philosophers of the Enlightenment. Since I had a bit of time at the end of the exam, I used a quick mnemonic tool to make certain I'd covered all my bases. That tool was Monty Python's "Philosophers Song."
Now that we're reaching the end of our Perspectives in Legal Theory class, it's surprising just how useful the song might be again. Authors we've studied in bold, authors who've been mentioned in lectures or reading in italics:
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist,
Socrates himself was permanently pissed...
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!
So it seems we're more of a 'second verse' class this time...
Comments
I love this! While I've never quite managed to enjoy the genuis of sketches like Python's argument clinic, the factual songs are fantastic. For me, the best is the Galaxy Song, though it wouldn't be quite as useful under exam conditions, since IIRC, even the US teaches sciences in metric these days, and the song is largely in imperial units.
ravnq laamPosted by: Lyndsey | April 7, 2004 09:30 AM