Philosophy 101

Socrates was always gadflying,

Going round probing and prying.

The folks in the agora

Got sorer and sorer

And soon had old Socrates dying.

                 *            

Socrates' method was ironic.
While his follower's was Platonic.
”Go on, be brave!
”Get out of the cave.
”Or else you'll remain moronic.” 

                 *

Seneca said take it day by day;
Over events we really have no say.
He was tutor to that zero--
The emperor known as Nero.
And with his life he had to pay.

                 *

"It is not very rough
To shave away the extra stuff,"
Said William of Occam.
(Don't ever mock'm;
He'll surely call your bluff.)

                 *

There is really no fakin’

Respect for Roger Bacon.

For in the 13^th Cen.

Unlike other men,

He tried to get science shakin’.

                 *

My mail filter thinks him a sham

And sends his messages straight into SPAM.

But Rene Descartes

Is really quite smart,

Insisting, “I think, thus I am.”

                 *  

Your hat you must doff
To each French philosophe.
For they never were frightened
To make people enlightened
And smart as a university prof.

                 *

Existentialists, needing a bard,

Latched onto the Dane Kierkegaard,

Who, never dissembling,

Showed in Fear and Trembling

How living is really quite hard.

                 *

Among the big American names

There is a certain William James.

In thought, never static,

He was rather pragmatic

And investigated mystical claims.

                 *

About Sisyphus, said Albert Camus,
He had only one thing to do--
To push up that rock
Each day round the clock.
For that was the punishment due. 

                 *

“Simone,” said her lover, Jean-Paul,

“Let’s you and I tonight have a ball.

“There’s no-one to phone;

“We’ll do it alone.

“Hell is other people, after all.”

                 *

Kant was too cagey;

Nietzsche too ragey.

Aristotle

Hit the bottle.

And Aquinas was much too beige-y.