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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Free will - some new reading..
Message-ID: <108@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 19:45:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.108
Posted: Tue Aug  6 19:45:43 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 01:40:19 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago, Astronomy & Astrophysics
Lines: 41

Rosen writes:

> I hope you all get to read MY new book,
>"You Don't Know Your Ass From Your Unicorn:  The Varieties of Unicorns
> Worth Wanting".  

After you've finished that one, here's another book I would like to
see from you:  PHILOSOPHY MADE SIMPLE, by Richard Rosen.  Synopsis:
No longer will you have to spend long hours studying boring books or
spend years at an expensive university in order to understand
philosophy.  Just follow these quick 'n easy steps, and soon your
friends will be listening to you with new respect:

1.  Select a concept that has been much discussed in the
philosophical tradition.

2.  Look up this term in a dictionary.  Select one definition.

3.  With all the pig-headed intransigence you can command, defend
this definition against all comers as The One True Definition of the
concept.  If necessary, claim that the definition was established by a
committee of philosophers in the dim and distant past, and this
definition has been preserved down through the ages in dictionaries.

4.  Refuse to be sidetracked by any points anyone else makes about
epistemology, ontology, logic, the nature of definitions, etc.  These
people are only trying to confuse you, and you are inviting disaster
if you once swerve from tireless repetition of The Definition.  If it
occurs to you that definitions are made up of other concepts, and if
in moments of weakness you doubt that all concepts are fixed in
self-identity for all eternity from the Big Bang to the Final
Whimper, resolutely dismiss these thoughts from your mind.

5.  Clog any seminars in which you participate (such as
net.philosophy) with 500 lines/day of change-ringing on the same
themes, so that everyone's n-finger will be worn down to a nub and
everyone will be ready to give up on net.philosophy as a forum for
enjoyable and enlightening discussion.

Let me know when the book becomes available.

R. Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes