Philosophy Haiku

Ok, so I like haiku.  I also kinda think that trying to write haiku about philosophy is a good philosophical exercise, since the form forces both brevity and creativity of expression.  Regardless, they are fun to write.

Here are some haiku about Kant and Kant interpreters:

Kant claims that space is
transcendentally ideal
real as appearance

The things that appear
are spatiotemporal
’tis no illusion

representations
modifications in us
that’s how they appear?!

The I-Think can be
with each representation
or else it ain’t mine

twelve categories
derived from forms of judgment?
or forced to fit them?

Inner sense misled,
ignored apperception.
Hume’s fatal errors?

Garve reviewed first book
to which Kant harshly replied:
Prolegomena!

The B-deduction
seems less idealistic than
the previous one

Henry Allison:
transcendental idealism
is epistemic

The things in themselves
considered differently
are things that appear

The crucial notion:
Epistemic conditions
is somewhat obscure

James van Cleve believes
Kant’s really like Berkeley
a true idealist

appearances are
in our representations
virtual objects

Rae Langton maintains
transcendental idealism
is Humility

The appearances
are extrinsic properties
the forces of things

Why be so Humble?
Ignorance of the Inner
She blames causation

Jonathan Bennett:
Kant’s a phenomenalist
It’s all in the head!

Things we cannot see
still belong to possible
experiences

 

Other haikus about different philosophers:

Leibniz asserted
that monads have no windows
each mirrors the rest

Hume looked for himself
but could find no impression
No idea of “I”

Descartes divided
the body infinitely
the mind not at all

all this you can doubt
your body, the world are lost
meditate again

Berkeley has said
that the material world is
derived from God’s thoughts

sensory features
identified with ideas
Berkeley’s error

Locke’s ideas are veils
that obscure our perception
of things outside us

Don’t like skepticism?
then put the world in your mind
then you can see it!

Heidegger forgets
that the meaning of being
is not what it seems

Ryle said: Descartes’s view
is a category mistake
“mind” picks out no thing

Ryle: to have a mind
is to have behavior that
we call purposeful

Arithmetic fell
when Russell showed to Frege
a contradiction

Russell and Whitehead
had a remarkable view
that maths is logic

Jeremy Bentham
said pleasure is the sole good
forget quality

The mind is the brain
this some philosophers have claimed
Place, Smart, then Armstrong

Francis H. Bradley
had trouble with relations
and so lived alone

The worlds of Lewis
although merely possible
contain flesh and blood