Humor seems to be the Flavor of the Month here at PEL. We've had a couple of excellent posts about comedy recently (here and here), and another one is coming very soon. But in the midst of this, we shouldn't entirely lose sight of the inherent seriousness of philosophy; with that goal, I want to call attention in this post to a neglected classic, one of the foundational texts of Pre-Pythonic philosophy:
In addition to its inherent philosophical interest, this documentary evidence should resolve once and for all the tedious scholarly debate as to whether the Pythonic dialogues are records of conversations that actually took place. (I hardly need to remind our readers that all doubts about the adequacy of the label "pre-Pythonic" for this school of philosophers are put to rest here.)
Close attention to this dialogue will, I believe, yield rich philosophical fruit, not least in richening our understanding both of some of the dialogues of classical Pythonism and of certain strands in the contemporary neo-Pythonic revival.
It was surprisingly sweet to see two versions of the same Oxbridge Philosophy skit. The combination made John Cleese’s talent as a comic performer glaringly obvious. I had already seen him do that bit and was already a huge fan, but that combo knocked me out. Thanks for that.
The other two dialogues made it pretty clear that the Oxbridge skit is a parody of analytic philosophy in particular. And it will henceforth make me giggle inappropriately each time I encounter an analytic philosopher. 😉
I can testify that the Pythons were indeed indebted to this, and also the work of Peter Cook, and other writers. It seems to me that you can’t really attribute this source, as the defining source of Pythons’ output. That being said, I would direct you to this source video: where it is made certain that they were all writing independently before joining forces, be it with kids’ shows, such as ” Don’t adjust your set” and also to earlier influences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnpY46lOTX4&ab_channel=LiveTalksLA
The Pythons – as they were, coming from a mix of Cambridge and Oxford, ultimately culminating in the footlights; were indeed versed (at least some of them) in philosophical thought, Aristotelian or otherwise, and required no further “push” than that they acquired from each other.
Recall, that Miller, is almost a prototype for Graham Chapman, a foil if you will, for Cleese, but in terms of philosophy, I think that they found – then expounded their own feet, quite famously with the church.