And now for something completely different:
SPOILER ALERT:
The Germans are disputing it! Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-analytic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming that it was offside. But Confucius has answered them with the final whistle, it's all over! Germany, having trounced England's midfield trio of Bentham, Locke and Hobbes in the semi-final, have been beaten by the odd goal.
Bloody brilliant!
An all-time classic and probably the best (only?) philosophical comedy sketch ever.
They have a ‘reciting Proust’ sketch that’s pretty good too…
I recall an interview with one of them that mentioned the Proust sketch in particular and pointing out that most of their “cultural” humor of this sort is intended to require no actual knowledge of the figures involved to get the joke… just that these are hoity toity names that people who went to college will recognize.
It will be our goal to create humor that will be truly exclusionary of the ignorant!
Here’s a question I’d put on a test if I were an asshole philosophy professor:
“Schopenhauer and Descartes are sitting in a cafe…” Complete this joke in such a way that you display your knowledge of the two figures’ challenges in acknowledging the existence of each others’ inner lives. If the joke isn’t funny, you get a 0.