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Random neuron firing, lame philosophy, literary pontificating, movies, sex, clothes & other femme stuff

Monday, April 19, 2004

Philosopher Action-Figures

We collect action figures in a desultory way. On display around our house at this moment: Norman Bates (in mom's dress, w/ chef's knife), Freud, Shakespeare, Trinity, Godzilla, Shoe Barbie, Talking Dr. Evil ("Where do I begin? My childhood was typical-- summers in Rangoon, luge lessons; in the Spring we'd make meat helmets"). You can imagine, therefore, how excited I was to find Philosophical Powers (via John Holbo at Crooked Timber), the site for philosopher action-figures (note hyperpedantic deployment of hyphen here and in title, but not in first sentence).

Some of my faves:

"Plunderous" Plato
With divided line accessory. Enemies progress from imagining to thinking to believing to knowing they're in trouble!

"Hurt 'em" Hume
With Constant Conjunction Karate Chop Action. Works every time you press the lever on his back, but you observe no causation!

Would have listed more, but the site just got blocked for hitting bandwidth limit. John also likes the Frege figure, "with both Morning Star® and Evening Star® accessories (only one accessory included).” Don't you love philosopher's in-jokes (e.g., Bububu, baby)? The site was inspired by its author's seeing an ad for an Adam Smith figure with, you guessed it, "invisible hand" action.

John also vouchsafes another joke that must knock 'em dead at the APA:
[C]an ‘carnal knowledge’ be adequately defined as ‘justified, true carnal belief’? Answer either as Dan Savage or Edmund Gettier.


I have a sort of ironic relation to jokes like that. I can't decide which is funnier-- the joke-an-sich, so to speak, or the idea of anyone's --my, for instance-- laughing at the joke-an-sich.
Posted by: Mika / 4/19/2004 02:58:00 PM permalink  · 0 comments
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