sandy's question

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sangrain - to answer your question in the book thread. Werklempter includes, in a late chapter of the book, a fictional (we think) conversation between himself, David Hume and Immanuel Kant. I will take it up in the third paragraph, with Werklempter speaking in the first person.

I said, “Manny, why are you acting this way?”

“Ernst, you know…darned well why. I must needs forever and eternally act and behave in suchlike manner and deportment such that those beings around and among me will perceive and know it as a universal, transcendental law. Besides, I’m trying to get Dave to wise up.”

Dave’s face reddened. “You’ll get no reaction from me. Your childish ravings will have no effect on me. They cannot.”

“Settle down, Dave”, I said. “Don’t let Manny cause any trouble here.”

Dave glared at me. “Cause? Cause? Caaauuuse? What do you mean by cause?”.

“You’re an idiot,” Manny burst in. “And you’re bad, bad bad, bad bad. Universally bad. He’s bad, and I don’t want to talk to him anymore. That’s all I have to say.”

There was an awkward silence. I tried to change the subject. We had been getting on all day, until then.

“Hey!” I said. “Anybody want to play Categories?” It was Manny’s favorite game.

“No,” said Dave. “I want to play hide’n’go-seek.”

“Bah,” cried Manny. “I’m not playing hide’n’go-seek with a solipsist. It’s a waste of time. I know I’ll win before we start.”

“Who’s a solipsist? I’m not a solipsist. You’re a meally-mouthed moralist. Who says you’ll win? Wake up, you idiot!”

That’s when all hell broke loose. I managed to seperate them, but could not patch together the new friendship we had only moments ago formed.

“David,” I said. “Why are you trying to incite Manny like that? It’s impolite.”

He gave me a sideways glance.

“Because. Just because, that’s why.”

“And Immanuel? Why are you so testy?”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you, I’m an end in myself’” he said. “I’ll be nice if Dave will.”

Dave reddened again. “That’s a hypothetical - I’ll not react to it.”

“It’s not hypothetical, it’s categorical.”

“Hypothetical.”

“Categorical!”

“Hypothetical!”

[I don’t want to spoil the fun. But the scene ends with Werklempter’s famous moral maxim - “Be as nice as you can be under the circumstances, don’t be too stupid if you can help it, and try to look good, just in case.”]

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That’s a damn funny image in my mind. I can only imagine plump little Scotty Hume turning all red of indignation, like a little kid . lol.

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Actually, Mucius, this is my own translation. In Hrumpfs translation, it reads “Dave’s face reddened a little more.”

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Faust,
Funny you mention this chapter 'cause as I was reading it, I kept wondering why Manny found it Imperative to bring up the Categories game. It seems he’s really attached to game…almost duty bound. Quit a scintillating read this book.

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Try “The Art of Zen and Horse-drawn Buggy Maintenance”. A quality read.

Or “The Upperman”, in which he portends that some day a new kind of man will emerge, a superior type, a veritable god among men, an evolutionary breakthrough.

And that his name will be Jimi. And that he will play the guitar left-handed.

Spooky stuff.

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Faust, I just saw your response in the book thread. Antics? Childish? Egads man, greater levels of profundity have I not seen. Wait a minute, what does that say about me?

Nay, is say, this is the stuff of excellent acumen.

By the way, in the thread above I think one word is supposed to be ‘quite’ and I believe I completely left out a word somewhere in there. If anyone can figure which word that is, I promise you a worthy polemic…um, I mean hearty thanks.

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You speak of the demi-god.

One who could make the guitar talk.

Oh how it wailed an Anthem serenading the Upperman in his cascading upper-bell-bottoms.

Ah yes, the Art of one Horse Hoof Kicking. There is much wisdom in the “The Art of Zen and Horse-drawn Buggy Maintenance”. A tale of mystic Amish uber-men wielding bales of straw in true uber fashion.

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Ah, sandy, the list of classic Werklempter goes on and on. Have you perused these fine volumes?

View from a Windowless Monad: an Historical Account of the Servants Quarters in The House of Hanover, Why Leibniz Didn’t Have a Better Room There, and Why it Made Him a Crazy Nutball. (A classic of Positionist multifaceted analysis about a really fun subject)

Locke-ed and Loaded: Primary and Secondary Qualities, or Double-Vision? (A searingly original view of Locke’s epistemology, Newtonian physics, and Oxfordian pubs)

Bringing Home Francis Bacon, or Why are English Surnames Always the Same as Common Objects You’d Find in any Market? (Speaks for itself, I believe)

Plato’s Apology: Too Little, Too Late. (Ernst was not a big Plato guy)

The Cave of the Allegory: A Philosophical Travelogue, with Twelve Engravings in Low Light

and,

A Treatise on Treaties: The Post-Pre-National Stage in Europe, or Why Can’t the Italians Get Along with Each Other? (Credited with putting the unification of Italy off for three months, while everybody read it, and for seven more years, while everyone argued about what it meant - brilliant and under-rated)

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Stitches faust, stitches.

I mean, am I the only one privy to this great mind’s genius? Seriously, I understand he didn’t write for everyone, but come on, this stuff is priceless. Anyway, short of time. I’ll now go ruminate.