Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...  Blog post 1
Ian Mallari Section 14

For my Midterm blog report, I will be detailing jokes from Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein’s book Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar. This book is amazing because it explains philosophers and philosophical  beliefs through humerus jokes (my kind of learning!)

Flipping through the book, I found jokes for almost every philosopher we have discussed so far. For this post, I am covering Berkeley and Stoicism.  

Berkeley:
Joke

A man is worried that his wife is losing her hearing,so he consults a doctor. the doctor suggests that he try a simple at-home test on her: stand behind her and ask her a question, first from twenty feet away, then from ten feet, and finally right behind her.

So the man goes home and sees he wife in the kitchen facing the stove. He says from the door, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

No answer.

Ten feet behind her, he repeats, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

Still no answer.

Finally, right behind her he says, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

And his wife turns around and says, “For the third time- Chicken!” (page 55)

Berkeley used “esse est percipi” to explain how we sense and perceive things. (to explain these perceptions, Berkeley acknowledged God’s existence) He believed that  the so-called objective world is all in the mind. The joke above clearly shows this notion because the man perceives his wife to be losing her hearing...when he is the one who can not hear. His perception is off...therefore his thinking (mind) is off as well.

Stoicism:
Joke
The Coopers were shown into the dentist’s office, where Mr. Cooper made it clear he was in a big hurry. “No fancy stuff, Dr.” He ordered. “No gas or needles or any of that stuff. Just pull the tooth and get it over with.”
“I wish more of my patients were as stoic as you,” said the dentist admirably. “Now, which tooth is it?”
Mr. Cooper turned to his wife. “Open your mouth, honey.” (page 80)

Stoics believed they could not change a lot about their daily lives, so they instead changed their attitude toward life. They had a strategy of “emotional disengagement” that allowed them to look at life without their emotions. They called this attitude ‘apathia’. The joke above shows this belief through the husband’s emotionlessness toward the dentist and his wife’s potential pain. Seemingly unafraid of the pain from a pulled tooth, Mr. Cooper denies his emotions and voluntarily presents his wife to get her tooth (numbing free) pulled. As a stoic, Mr. Cooper does not allow his emotions to run his daily life.