Metaller weather and philosophy.
I just looked out my window, I had no idea. The wind is playing loud, the lighting is freaking out with purpley-grey clouds scudding past orangey-pink ones, and the trees are in the mosh pit.
In some theories a definite description does the same work as a name. So, if when my friend Gillian mentions her friend Gary Hardcastle I ask "is he the one with the kid like Calvin who did the box?" what does he ask when she mentions me? Surely not anything as dull as "is she the New Zealander?" from someone who's written Monty Python and Philosophy (like the combination of ideas? Try this 1993 talk).
Oh, about the box, well, I might get it wrong, but I think it goes like this... in order to show the students of a Philosophy of Science course what being a scientist is really like he got his kids to fill a box with varied junk and then totally sealed it. Nobody knew all of what was in the box when he took it to his class and asked the students to try to find out what was in the box without opening it. They shook it, weighed it, x-rayed it, interrogated his kids (I hope the one billed as being like Calvin lied), and got some pretty good theories. At the end of the course he took the box to the dump without opening it. No scientist gets to open the box.
The wind's still playing loud, I presume there are black low clouds scudding past black high clouds and black trees still flailing as they dance, but it's a goth gig and I can't see anything but the exit lights near the loo from my window.
In some theories a definite description does the same work as a name. So, if when my friend Gillian mentions her friend Gary Hardcastle I ask "is he the one with the kid like Calvin who did the box?" what does he ask when she mentions me? Surely not anything as dull as "is she the New Zealander?" from someone who's written Monty Python and Philosophy (like the combination of ideas? Try this 1993 talk).
Oh, about the box, well, I might get it wrong, but I think it goes like this... in order to show the students of a Philosophy of Science course what being a scientist is really like he got his kids to fill a box with varied junk and then totally sealed it. Nobody knew all of what was in the box when he took it to his class and asked the students to try to find out what was in the box without opening it. They shook it, weighed it, x-rayed it, interrogated his kids (I hope the one billed as being like Calvin lied), and got some pretty good theories. At the end of the course he took the box to the dump without opening it. No scientist gets to open the box.
The wind's still playing loud, I presume there are black low clouds scudding past black high clouds and black trees still flailing as they dance, but it's a goth gig and I can't see anything but the exit lights near the loo from my window.
posted by Susan Harper at
8:55 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Susan... You've got the box story right, except I didn't take it to the dump at the end of the semester. I simply put it on a shelf. There are few perks to being a philosophy professor, but having the world in a box on your shelf is one of them...
Yours,
Gary Hardcastle
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