Free Monty Python and Philosophy by Gary L. Hardcastle

philosophy is important—he wouldn’t want the onlooker to react to his friend as the doctor reacts to the patient in the above injured-hand case. These cases, I think, help to illuminate our piston engine case (and show that my initial impulse to borrow René Magritte’s “This is not a pipe” was not far from the mark).
    Along the lines of the cases Wittgenstein introduces above, we might say that what strikes us as funny about Mrs. Non-Gorilla’s reply (to the question of why she bought the piston engine) is that it is not really a reason for buying the engine after all, even though it takes the form of one. To be sure, we could count it as a lousy reason for buying it, but then we shouldn’t be laughing at Mrs. Gorilla, as much as we should be pitying or rebuking her (for being so shallow or so stupid). And, we could take “No, . . . been shopping” as a customary response to the question “Been shopping?” but if we did, again we shouldn’t find this funny, as much as we should find it an interesting custom. But, these aren’t strangers with strange customs! They are working-class women at the park, who live somewhere in England (at least, this is the premise of the skit). Rather, the joke arises in its not being a response at all, even though it takes the form of one. Although we are led to believe (at first) that we are watching the social interaction of women in the park, who express interest in what the others have done, and so on, the joke is that we are not watching anything of the sort. And though the scene at first appears ordinary enough, at the end, along with Mrs. Smoker and Mrs. Non-Smoker, we walk off dazed and confused, reminded of something Hamlet tells Horatio: “There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” Alas, Monty Python has pulled back the curtain. For, none of the philosophical theories of meaning will do. They have made Wittgenstein’s point! A complete analysis of what these women say in terms of syntax, semantics, truth-conditions, use, and so on, will not capture what it is about their exchange that makes us laugh. There is simply more going on in the park than there is dreamt of in our philosophy. For whatever it is that is left over after we have accounted for meaning, which some will say is all there is to account for here, it is the leftovers that work their magic on us. It is the stuff that Horatio’s philosophy cannot account for that seems to matter here.

5
    Why Is an Argument Clinic Less Silly than an Abuse Clinic or a Contradiction Clinic?
    HARRY BRIGHOUSE
     
     
    M onty Python’s Flying Circus drove numerous young people of my generation into philosophy. Having been driven into philosophy and stayed, I’m startled to notice how many references to philosophy in Monty Python have some basis in the reality of philosophy as a profession. The Bruces’ Philosopher’s Song (also known as the Australian Philosophers’ Song), for example, is simultaneously a comment on the incongruity of an Australian accent (regarded by elitist Britons as crass and un-intellectual) combined with something as serious and high-brow as philosophy, and a tribute to the enormous influence that Australian philosophers had over English-speaking philosophy at the time, and still have.
    Perhaps most striking of all to a practicing philosopher is the “Argument Clinic” sketch ( Monty Python’s Flying Circus , Episode 29, “The Money Programme”). The customer enters the Argument Clinic, after a false start with Mr. Barnard in the abuse room:
    MR. BARNARD : What do you want?
    CUSTOMER : Well, I was just . . .
    MR. BARNARD : Don’t give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
    CUSTOMER : What?

    MR. BARNARD : Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous, pervert!!!
    CUSTOMER : Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I’m not going to just stand . . . !!
    MR. BARNARD : OH! Oh I’m sorry,