What is the best philosophy joke you have heard

Question

I am not talking about jokes about how poor philosophers are or how unpractical they are. But one of those jokes that really makes you think. And would be appropriate to tell in class. Interested to hear what people think.

Answer 1

Bruces' Philosophers Song

Music and Lyrics: Eric Idle

Imannuel Kant / was a real piss ant / who was very rarely stable

Heidegger Heidegger / was a boozy beggar / who could think you under the table

David Hume / could out-consume / Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein / was a beery swine / who was just as sloshed as Schlegel

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist

Socrates himself was permanently pissed

-

John Stuart Mill / of his own free will / on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill

Plato they say / could stick it away / half a crate of whiskey every day

Aristotle Aristotle / was a bugger for the bottle / Hobbes was fond of his dram

And René Descartes / was a drunken fart / "I drink, therefore I am"

Yes Socrates himself is particularly missed / a lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

Assignment for the class: find all the philosophy references made in connection to the philosophers in the song.

Bonus joke

Descartes is tending a bar.

Client walks in and says "I think I will have a free beer, on the house"

Descartes — mightily annoyed at this rude suggestion — exclaims: "I think not!"

...and promptly disappears.

Answer 2

Not sure if this is strictly a philosophy joke, since you could easily replace the philosopher with any complex profession. In any case, here is a great joke that was Number 4 on the Psychology Today top-ten philosophy jokes:

A renowned philosopher was held in high regard by his driver, who listened in awe as his boss lectured and answered difficult questions about the nature of things and the meaning of life. Then, one day, the driver approached the philosopher and asked if he was willing to switch roles for just one evening. The philosopher agreed, and, for a while, the driver handled himself remarkably well.

However, when the time came for questions, someone at the back of the room asked him, "Is the epistemological meta-narrative that you seem to espouse compatible with a teleological account of the universe?"

"That's an extremely simple question," he replied. "So simple, in fact, that even my driver could answer it."

Answer 3

There's a choice :

Bertrand Russell : 'The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.' (Mysticism and Logic, IX, 'On the Notion of Cause', London : George Allen & Unwin, 1917, 180.

Bertrand Russell : 'So far, there is nothing particularly frepugnant to our prejudices in the conclusion of the benabourists. We are all willing to admit that other people are thoughtless.' (The Analysis of Mind, Lecture I, London : George Allen & Unwin, 1921, 21.

Gilbert Ryle : '... Professor A.C. Campbell, who has written several books on the freedom of will - or rather, one book several times' (Oxford lecture, 1967).

Peter Strawson : '... like self-mutilation, which starts off as merely painful and ends as logically impossible' (Oxford lecture, 1968).