Limericks explaining philosophical views and arguments. The form’s strict constraints—only five lines, fixed anapestic meter—requires extreme expository compression.
Can the comic for capture the essence of a
Plato said, ‘You’re all stuck in a cave,
Seeing shadows of copies folk wave.
So escape and enjoy
The world of εἰδοί,
Then go spread the word — if you’re brave.’
Jesus said, ‘You don’t need to be clever
Or learn rules and rites; just endeavour
To love God and each other,
Treat your foe as your brother,
And we’ll all live in Heaven forever.’
St Anselm said, ‘Look, we agree
God’s perfect as perfect can be.
But a thing that’s not real
Is far from ideal
So God must exist. QED.’
As he sat by the stove on his bum,
Descartes hit on a neat rule of thumb:
‘If it’s possible to doubt,
Then cast it right out.’
Which left cogito and, ergo, sum.
That Leibniz guy, he had some gonads!
He said people are windowless monads
With their future all packed in
–There’s no interacting —
We’re all just preharmonized nomads!
George Berkeley, though hardly a hippie,
Propounded a view that’s quite trippy:
The whole of creation
Is pure ideation,
And esse is simply percipi.
Immanuel said, ‘World and mind
Aren’t separate but deeply entwined.
A concept is vacant
Sans percept to take in ‘t,
And percept sans concept is blind.’
Freud said, ‘If your life is all fucked up,
It’s because your brain functioning’s mucked up
By rendering dormant
Your childhood torment.
Talk it out and you’ll soon feel quite bucked up!”
An Austrian chap called Karl Popper
Said ‘Confirming’s a bad modus oper-
-andi for science
So end your compliance
And falsify things good and proper.’
Mary’s Lament
Though I’ve mapped every neuronal spike (yes!)
And read all of the relevant psych, guess
I’ll never find out
This thing they can’t doubt
The ineffable what-it-is-likeness.
David Chalmers said, ‘Folks, here’s the deal:
The world that you see and you feel —
Well, all of its its
Could be made out of bits,
But don’t be alarmed — they’re still real!
