Bertrand Russell - Existential Comics

A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

Bertrand Russell Files for Divorce

It's a mistake to ground your marriage in pure logic, you have to ground it in empiricism (looking hot).

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Philosopher News Network: Doping Scandal

Also, William James was later found to have chromosomes in a DNA test, and an social media mob believes this is clearly cheating.

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The Bertrand Russell Paradox

Actually I believe, using only logic, that I can prove once and for all that it is impossible to not waste your life...

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Occam's Razor

Seriously though, come on scientists, it's called THEORETICAL physics, I want to see some more fun theories here. Let's get wacky with it.

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What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

Egg came first fyi. Solved.

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Philosophical Pickup Lines

Generally speaking philosophy is actually a super good for picking up women if what you want to do with them is dicuss philosophy.

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500th Comic

Seriously though thanks for the support over the years.

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Frege in the Public Square

"Wait one more thing, I promise it isn't about the Jews." "Okay what?" "The thing about Gypsies is th-" "Nope back to the farm!"

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Philosophy in a Free Fall

I always thought the "analytic / continental divide" was poorly named, it's really the nerd/non-nerd divide.

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In Which Bertrand Russell Asks Out a Girl

Frege: "Look Russell, it is simple. You just have to state your case with rigorous mathematical precision, and you will be sure to have success. "
Russell: "But what if she says no, Frege?"

Frege: "Think about it logically. What is the worse case scenario? That she says no and you won't get a date, which is the exact same state of the world if you don't ask her out at all."
Russell: "Hmm, i guess you are right."

Russell: "Excuse me, miss, i was wonder if...perhaps...sometime you wanted to go on a date with me?"

Woman: "No."
Rusell: "Oh, okay then."

WomanN: "One more thing though, have you ever wondered if the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contains itself or not?"

Frege: "What happened Russell? You look like you've seen a ghost! Did she reject you?"
Russell: "Frege, you might want to sit down."

So remember, the worst thing that can happen when you ask out a girl is that they could inadvertently destroy your attempt to ground mathematics in pure logic. It's probably not worth the risk.

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The Philosophers Dating Game

Unpopular opinion: Aristotle was the beginning of the downturn of western philosophy, because he changed the philosophy of Socrates into what was a fundamentally nerd philosophy. In this essay I will...

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Fireworks and a Theory of Language

Wittgenstein: "Hey Russell, i just got some fireworks, you want to set them off with me? "
Russell: "Obviously, Wittgenstein. "

Russell: "Whoa, whoa, Wittgenstein, what are you doing? It says â€œnot for indoorâ€ use."
Wittgenstein: "Exactly, which means it's fine."
Russell: "What?! No, it means it's not fine, hence the word â€œnotâ€."

Russell: "See, this is a denotative statement about a state of affairs in the world. Namely, that these fireworks are unsafe to use indoors."

Wittgenstein: "No, no, no. Language doesn't work that way. Each speech act takes place in the context of a given social understanding."

Wittgenstein: "They know people will only use fireworks indoors that are actually safe indoors, so they put the label on so they don't get sued. Thus, the label actually means the firework is safe for indoor use."

Wittgenstein: "See, look at this firework. It doesn't have the warning, despite clearly being less safe. "

Wittgenstein: "Understand the particular language game that you are situated in, not grasping the meaning of words, is the key to successfully understanding language and navigating through the complex social fabric of our lives."
Russell: "Alright, i guess that makes sense, sort of..."

"ten minutes later..."

Wittgenstein, looking at the house, which as burned down: "Okay, but I still think the general theory is correct..."

Look, the way science works in practice is that theories are based on the entire body of knowledge within a community, no one result can disprove...

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Philosophy News Network: is Philosophy Useless?

Simone de Beauvoir, as a newscaster: "This week a special report on philosophy: is it totally pointless, or what?"
News ticker: "Communist party splits over
controversial â€œno splittingâ€ rule."

de Beauvoir: "Joining us are two experts in the field, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein."

Description of Bertrand Russell: expert in philosophy, math, and failing to ground things in logic.
Description of Ludwig Wittgenstein: basically a younger, cooler, better looking version of Russell.

de Beauvoir: "We'll start with you, Russell, you believe that philosophy has value?"
News Ticker: "philosophy professor forced to imagine himself fired over offensive thought experiment."

Bertrand Russell: "Certainly de Beauvoir. There are so called â€œpractical menâ€ who only believe philosophy is the pursuit of hair-splitting distinctions and irrelevant musings."
News Ticker: Foucault writes 600 page genealogical account of his feud with next door neighbor over parking.

Russell: "And while philosophy doesn't build up a body of knowledge, like mathematics or science, because it is certain, but The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. In its ability is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom."
News Ticker: Machiavelli says The Prince wasn't meant literally, it was written in a cynical attempt to gain power.

Russell: "the man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation of consent of his deliberate reason."
News Ticker: Philosophy community in shock after freshmen student solves all problems on the first try.

de Beauvoir: "Well said Russell. Wittgenstein, your response?"
News Ticker: Schopenhauer's lawsuit against Hegel dismissed after judge rules Hegel was the greater philosopher.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: "That is wrong. Philosophy is stupid and pointless, and we shouldn't do it anymore."
News Ticker: Kierkegaard confesses his big regret in life: that he didn't date enough smoking hot babes.

Russell: "How can you say that? Don't you realize that your statement itself is philosophical? That you are doing philosophy yourself?"
News Ticker: Epistemology Department closes after failing to secure knowledge of whether they had funding.

Wittgenstein: "Well, yes, obviously my philosophy is useful. Someone has to point how useless your philosophy is, after all. But after i finished doing that everything else is a huge waste of time."
News Ticker: philosophers all agree to give up on the hard problem of consciousness, â€œit's too hard.â€

de Beauvoir: "Thank you, Wittgenstein, i think we can all agree this, at the very least, has been a huge waste of time."
News Ticker: Sigmund Freud changes his mind after realizing he is the only one that obsessed with penises.

de Beauvoir: "Coming up next week: women? doing philosophy? It's more likely than you think. But can they do as well as men? We have a panel of six men to discuss."
News Ticker: Saint Augustine confesses: â€œi once stole pears from a man in Reno, just to watch him cry.â€

Is philosophy useless? Well, it is now on account of the fact that I've solved it.

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Bertrand Russell Invents Analytic Philosophy

Continental Philosophers: "replacing words with math symbols doesn't make things clear, replacing words with new words that I just made up makes things clear."

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Bertrand Russell has a Near Death Experience

Description: Bertrand Russell walking with Frege.

Bertrand Russell: "So as you can see, logical atomism can explain anyth-"

Description: a piano falls from the sky and lands right next to Russell.

Russell: "Oh my god, i could have died!"

Russell: "Everything seems different, the colors are brighter, the sunset more beautiful. I feel like a new man!"

Russell: "From this day forward i will live life as i've always wanted to! I will do the things i've always dreamed of doing."

Description: "The next day..."

Frege: "What are you doing? I thought you were going to live life to the fullest?"
Russell: "I am!"

Russell: "I am grounding math in logic, once and for all!"
Frege: "But isn't that exactly what you tried before, and failed to do?"

Russell: "Yes, but this time no paradoxes, you see, i have a multi tiered system, sets from higher tiers can only contain sets from lower tiers!"
Frege: "Ugh...not again."

"Also, I've decided to get married again, and this time no divorce!"

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Wittgenstein Revises His Thesis

Wittgenstein: "You see, Russell, the world is everything that is the case."
Bertrand Russel: "What do you mean, Wittgenstein?"

Wittgenstein: "When we speak, we form a proposition, we are making a picture of the world, connected by the logical form."

Wittgenstein: "But some sentences don't connect to the world as it is, they have no empirical content. When we speak of morality or metaphysics, there is no fact in the world that connects the proposition to a truth value."

Wittgenstein: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Bertrand Russel: "But wait, isn't that sentence itself â€œnonsenseâ€, since it doesn't describe a truth condition of empirical content?"

Wittgenstein: " Hmm, you are right, maybe i'll have to rework it..."

Wittgenstein: " Okay, how about this: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent, starting..........NOW!"

Bertrand Russel: "I'm surprisingly okay with it."
PERSON: "it's perfect. There are no flaws at all. I think i just solved philosophy."

How about this: no one can say anything that isn't grounded in empirical observation, except for Wittgeinstein.

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Wittgenstein's Lion

"Derrida is actually quite clear, more clear in some ways than the analytic philosophers."

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Philosophy Infomercial

"But wait, if you order in the next 15 minutes, we'll throw in a Existentialism for free! You'll be in profound, inescapable despair in no time!"

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Philosophy News Network: Philosophy Solved

Of course, the entire premise of philosophy being "solved" is ridiculous, since Leibniz already solved it when he wrote the Monadology

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Bertrand Russell on the Job Market

Fun fact: the original title of "A History of Western Philosophy" was "A History of Western Philosophy: analytics rule and continentals drool" until the editors made him drop the subtitle.

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The Bar Fight

Not shown: Camus triumphantly rebelling against the absurd by picking up a woman at the bar.

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Good Cop, Pragmatist About the Nature of Truth Cop

In the end the jury decided that truth was more about a coherence between ideas themselves, and also that Socrates was a dick, so we might as well kill him.

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Star Trek: but instead of normal, it's with philosophers

You'd think I would have called it "The Wrath of Kant", but no. I decided to use a way better title instead.

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Philosophy Club

When you think about it, any club can be a fight club with enough spirit.

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Analytic Office

You thought that last joke wasn't going to be an Office Space sketch? No. BOOM! Radical freedom, it's Seinfeld. And a bit of Dilbert.

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Philosophy News Network

That's what people mean when they talk about "experimental philosophy" right?

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Pokemon Philosophy

Until the Pokemon own the gym, they will always be oppressed.

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The Philosophy Superbowl

In many ways Wittgenstein is similar to Tom Brady, whose first Superbowl was also based on a mistake: the Tuck Rule. Also, they are both devastatingly handsome.

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Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers II: The Analytic Turn

Russell destroyed most of Frege's items too, when he threw the bag of holding into the portable hole. Frege was pretty cheesed off about it at first, but eventually he admitted it was his fault for not realizing that portable holes weren't quite as secure as he had thought.

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Language Games: Philosophers Play Pictionary

Growing up in a wealthy home, Wittgenstein never actually saw a beetle as a child. When he asked his parents and relatives what a beetle looked like, they gave descriptions, but he could tell they didn't know either. As he grew older, he theorized that no one had ever actually seen a beetle. He told all his philosopher friends, who just got really excited and assumed that he was making a profound point regarding the nature of language. He was too embarrassed to correct them and simply pretended like that was what he meant all along. He still isn't sure what a beetle is to this day, or if they even exist at all.

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Beetle in a Box

Five naked, blindfolded men get into a hottub. The water represents the totality of facts, what we feel with our hands represents our picture of the world, and our penises...

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