Extract from Foucault's Pendulum for your perusal
“… There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.”“And that covers everybody?”“Oh yes, including us. Or at least, me. If you take a good look, everybody fits into one of these categories. Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.”…“… Cretins. Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble. You know, the guy who presses the ice cream cone against his forehead, or enters a revolving door the wrong way.”“That’s not possible.”“It is for a cretin. …”…
“Being a fool is more complicated. It’s a form of social behavior. A fool is one who always talks outside his glass.”“What do you mean?”“Like this.” He pointed at the counter near his glass. “He wants to talk about what’s in the glass, but somehow or other his misses. He’s the guy who puts his foot in his mouth. For example, he says how’s your lovely wife to someone whose wife has just left him.”“Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats. ... Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent.
.“What about morons?”“Ah. Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, and therefore cats bark. …”“… Morons are tricky. You can spot the fool right away (not to mention the cretin), but the moron reasons almost the way you do; the gap is infinitesimal. A moron is a master of paralogism.”“… Saint Ansalem’s ontological argument is moronic, for example. God must exist because I can conceive Him as a being perfect in all ways, including existence. The saint confuses existence in thought with existence in reality.”“True, but Gaunilon’s refutation is moronic, too. I can think of an island in the sea even if the island doesn’t exist. He confuses thinking of the possible with thinking of the necessary.”“A duel between morons.”“Exactly. And God loves every minute of it. He chose to be unthinkable only to prove that Anslem and Gaunilon were morons. What a sublime purpose for creation, or rather, for that act by which God willed Himself to be: to unmask cosmic moronism.”“… Perhaps, in a logical system different from ours, our moronism is wisdom. The whole history of logic consists of attempts to define an acceptable notion of moronism. A task too immense. Every great thinker is someone else’s moron.”…
“A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has a logic, however twisted it might be. The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. … You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration …”…“Everything I’ve said to you so far is false. Good night, Casaubon.”
“Being a fool is more complicated. It’s a form of social behavior. A fool is one who always talks outside his glass.”“What do you mean?”“Like this.” He pointed at the counter near his glass. “He wants to talk about what’s in the glass, but somehow or other his misses. He’s the guy who puts his foot in his mouth. For example, he says how’s your lovely wife to someone whose wife has just left him.”“Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats. ... Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent.
.“What about morons?”“Ah. Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, and therefore cats bark. …”“… Morons are tricky. You can spot the fool right away (not to mention the cretin), but the moron reasons almost the way you do; the gap is infinitesimal. A moron is a master of paralogism.”“… Saint Ansalem’s ontological argument is moronic, for example. God must exist because I can conceive Him as a being perfect in all ways, including existence. The saint confuses existence in thought with existence in reality.”“True, but Gaunilon’s refutation is moronic, too. I can think of an island in the sea even if the island doesn’t exist. He confuses thinking of the possible with thinking of the necessary.”“A duel between morons.”“Exactly. And God loves every minute of it. He chose to be unthinkable only to prove that Anslem and Gaunilon were morons. What a sublime purpose for creation, or rather, for that act by which God willed Himself to be: to unmask cosmic moronism.”“… Perhaps, in a logical system different from ours, our moronism is wisdom. The whole history of logic consists of attempts to define an acceptable notion of moronism. A task too immense. Every great thinker is someone else’s moron.”…
“A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has a logic, however twisted it might be. The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. … You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration …”…“Everything I’ve said to you so far is false. Good night, Casaubon.”
posted by Andrew at 6:04 AM
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