Our philosophy teacher, Dr. Lauder, doubles as a magician, which makes the lessons he teaches rather interesting, to say the least. Why just yesterday he showed his prowess while teaching us about Kant. As is common, he sat in a plain wooden chair in front of a plain wooden table with four legs. The slab of wood atop the four legs is only six inches or so thick, and there are beneath that slab no drawers or other obscuring items. We can clearly see his khakis and brown shoes.
As we entered the classroom, we saw written on the board 'Immanuel Kant 1724-1804'. And on the table in front of the seated professor was a battery-operated frog toy. When the class was seated and settled, Dr. Lauder began his lecture. 'Phenomena versus Noumena' he said. 'One of the many discussion points associated with Kant. I have here a toy frog sitting quite still. If I wind it, it will roll around the desk, and perhaps off it.' He wound the toy and it spun in circles before falling onto the ground. 'You have just seen the toy frog spin and fall. You have witnessed that phenomena.
'Now, I will place the toy frog in this box on the corner of the table.' He did. 'I will knock thrice on the box.' He did. 'And now I would like you to consider the frog. Was that a frog in and of itself? If so, why? If not, why not?' There came a pause.
'It wasn't a frog,' said one, 'but just a crude representation of one'.
'I agree,' chimed in another. 'A frog is a living, breathing life form. And that was a plastic play toy.'
'Fine,' said the professor. 'But when I open this box...' He opened the box. 'I see a real, live breathing frog.' And in fact, there sat in the box a frog with a battery strapped to its back.
'That's not the same frog,' snapped one of the students, obviously frustrated.
'Prove it,' said the teacher. 'I would argue that the toy's action as a rolling thing and its subsequent transformation into this living being that hops - two respective phenomena of the respective entities that I call "frog" - are just two representations of the same thing I call "frog".'
'But they aren't the same thing,' repeated the student.
'You're right. And it will be your assignment for next week in a couple typed pages to explain why. Now let us discuss further...'
1 comment:
Sounds like that would be an intriguing class to participate in... the philosophy profs I had in university were far less inventive.
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