Philosophy Now Forum

by Anja Steinbauer

http://philosophynow.org/issues/86/Phil ... _the_Beach

I am just wondering about the deckchairs on the beach in this article. Deckchairs belong on a deck. There should be, instead, beach chairs on the beach, which our four philosophers are draping their beach towels on.

I guest the title of this article comes from the opera "Einstein on the Beach". Einstein, most likely, is emblematic or symbolic of the atomic bomb dropped on a beach in the Bikini Atolls. Could the four philosophers on this beach represent something like an epistemological atomic bomb?

Its also an in European joke about Germans, towels and deckchairs around swimming pools.

The beach is owned by Hobbes and Spinoza.
And the deck chairs provided by Berkeley and Locke.
Hume provided the loungers and the drinks, and a selection snacks, including a picnic with a range of tidbits and those little crunchy chewy things.

zorro wrote:I am just wondering about the deckchairs on the beach in this article. Deckchairs belong on a deck. There should be, instead, beach chairs on the beach, which our four philosophers are draping their beach towels on.

All British beaches have deck chairs - its tradition you are screwing with there.

I guest the title of this article comes from the opera "Einstein on the Beach". Einstein, most likely, is emblematic or symbolic of the atomic bomb dropped on a beach in the Bikini Atolls. Could the four philosophers on this beach represent something like an epistemological atomic bomb?

"On the Beach", by Neville Shute is worth considering whilst the Germans procrastinate.

I am surprised that the four German philosophers on the beach are described as 'dudes'. That's pretty slangy. But the word may come from a German dialect meaning 'fool'.

I am sort of surprised that Marx wasn't included in this beach party. He too is a German philosopher of the 19th century, and has ties to Hegel.

I am wondering, what did "Kant & Co." think about hygiene? How clean were these people, personally and in their surrounding?

Did Kant include hygiene as one of the ‘categorical imperatives’? Or is hygiene just an afterthought. It certainly became important in the field of medicine at the time. in the 19th century when Kant & Co was in business.

zorro wrote:I am sort of surprised that Marx wasn't included in this beach party. He too is a German philosopher of the 19th century, and has ties to Hegel.

He nicked Hegels chair and towel, turned them upside down and owned the lot of 'em.

It's Marx's aim to change the deck chairs, not to sit on them.
The deck chairs need to be liberated from bourgeois control; we have nothing to loose but our trunks; swimmers of the world unite!

zorro wrote:I am wondering, what did "Kant & Co." think about hygiene? How clean were these people, personally and in their surrounding?

Did Kant include hygiene as one of the ‘categorical imperatives’? Or is hygiene just an afterthought. It certainly became important in the field of medicine at the time. in the 19th century when Kant & Co was in business.

I'm sure Kant was meticulously clean.

chaz wyman wrote:It's Marx's aim to change the deck chairs, not to sit on them.
The deck chairs need to be liberated from bourgeois control; we have nothing to loose but our trunks; swimmers of the world unite!

Fuck the swimmers! They're just freeloaders! Splitters! Teach a man to make a deck-chair and he can unite with the towel-makers and march forward to a glorious future where all men can sit and fly their towel with pride!

zorro wrote:I am surprised that the four German philosophers on the beach are described as 'dudes'. That's pretty slangy. But the word may come from a German dialect meaning 'fool'.

Yes, that was my fault I'm afraid. I did fret that 'dudes' might be too slangy for the front cover, and I was also worried that "Four Dudes That Shook the World" might be grammatically suspect. Shurely, I thought, it should be "Four Dudes Who Shook the World"?

My excuse, as you have probably already guessed, is that I was making an allusion to "Ten Days That Shook the World", the famous 1919 book by American journalist John Reed about the Russian 'Revolution'. Of course John Reed, like Lenin, was writing while under the influence of another 19th century German philo, which is my answer to your next post!

Ak:

Teach a man to make a deck-chair ...

Trouble is that those chairs are made out of the crooked timber of humankind. Kant would probably have liked the chairs to be 'beach chairs' instead, which are mostly made of canvas.

Thanks Rick, I hadn't heard of John Reed's book. And I missed your 'that' substitution for 'who', which I often do.

Nietzsche throwing sand? Alas, they have not heard, the lifeguard is dead...

-Imp