Speak Like a Philosophy Professor

6 July 2010 at 2:12 pm Peter G. Klein 4 comments

| Peter Klein |

From Shrek the Third (text courtesy of IMDB):

Prince Charming: You! You can’t lie! So tell me puppet… where… is… Shrek?
Pinocchio: Uh. Hmm, well, uh, I don’t know where he’s not.
Prince Charming: You’re telling me you don’t know where Shrek is?
Pinocchio: It wouldn’t be inaccurate to assume that I couldn’t exactly not say that it is or isn’t almost partially incorrect.
Prince Charming: So you do know where he is!
Pinocchio: On the contrary. I’m possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea that in no way with any amount of uncertainty that I undeniably
Prince Charming: Stop it!
Pinocchio: …do or do not know where he shan’t probably be, if that indeed wasn’t where he isn’t. Even if he wasn’t at where I knew he was,
[Pigs and Gingerbread Man begin singing]
Pinocchio: That’d mean I’d really have to know where he wasn’t.

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4 Comments Add your own

1. michael webster | 6 July 2010 at 4:11 pm

Not any philosophy professors I know. An economist giving practical advice to be followed, well that could be. (LOL)
2. Peter Klein | 6 July 2010 at 4:33 pm

Touché!
3. Mikolaj Barczentewicz | 6 July 2010 at 4:44 pm

I love this dialogue. It always reminds me of the arch-public servant character, sir Humphrey Appleby, from BBC’s “Yes, Minister.”

See, for example:

– Betty Oldham: Look, Sir Humphrey, whatever we ask the Minister, he says is an administrative question for you, and whatever we ask you, you say is a policy question for the Minister. How do you suggest we find out what is going on?

– Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, yes, yes, I do see that there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.

Or this one (my personal favorite):

– Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes. Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
– James Hacker: Epistemological? What are you talking about?
– Sir Humphrey Appleby: You told a lie.

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0030014/quotes
4. Peter Klein | 6 July 2010 at 4:49 pm

How about this one:

Boss calls subordinate into his office. “Johnson, I’m thinking of getting rid of all yes men, naysayers, and equivocators. What do you think?”