Setting: 5th century Greece, BCE. The CSI unit has just discovered the dead body of Logictus Maximus floating in the Fiume Palistro river outside of Elea.
Pythagoras: My god! Who would have done such a thing to poor Logictus?
Xenophanes: Surely God has nothing to do with this my simple man; God does not commit such immoral acts.
Heraclitus: The only constant is change.
Xenophanes: Oh do be quiet Heraclitus.
Pythagoras: Maybe if we search long enough, we can find his soul in a new body and it can tells us who killed him!
Innocent Bystander: Detectives, I saw Obvious Killerious shoot him with an arrow!
Parmenides: Nonsense. Whatever you do, do not be guided by your dull eyes. Test all things with the power of your thinking alone.
Innocent Bystander: But, I saw it clear as day! Logictus was just sitting in the agora and Obvious pulled out a bow and…
Parmenides: All sense perceptions yield but illusions. We must consult logic.
Heraclitus: It is not possible to step into the same rivers.
Xenophanes: For the love of…
Pythagoras: Gents, if we calculate the speed of the current of the river we can determine at what time his body was cast in the river and…
Parmenides: Let us assume that the arrow has true being. Then there would be no rest, hence no position for the arrow, hence no space-which is impossible to conceive. Let us assume that time is real. Then it could not be infinitely divisible…
Innocent Bystander: But surely I tell you that I SAW IT HAPPEN! Oh wait…he’s coming back. He’s about to shoot me t….[innocent bystander is shot by Obvious]
[All four philosophers are too busy ignoring Obvious to see what is going on around them]
I see screenplay writing in my future.
defiintely. this could go viral.
Great skit, Cody! It’s a great way of getting at the critique that much of what we do in philosophy seems to be universes away from real life. This critique, of course, raises the question: What’s the point? *Why* do philosophy if it leads us to absurd conclusions such as “everything is water” or if it forces us to deny that we have hands? In short, I’m asking you to think if there are any connections between what we’ve studied thus far and everyday life. Any thoughts?
I think there is a great wealth of information that connects what we’ve learned with everyday life. At the very least, it exposes us to new ways of thinking and evaluating information. The point of this brief satire was to critique Parmenides’ view that our senses are too deceitful to be trusted. I know this is a popular opinion in philosophy, but from the little reading we’ve done so far, I think Parmenides takes it too far.