Cheeseburgers in a Philosophical Paradise

I’m a big fan of learning new content by comparing it to knowledge structures that I’m already familiar with. Perhaps no discipline is better suited for such a learning strategy than philosophy with its abstract thoughts about reality, knowledge, and ethics. Trying to nail down some of these abstract lines of thinking can feel as futile as trying to attach a strip of Scotch ™ tape to midair. That’s why I would like to create a grand analogy called “Philosophical Paradise”—an imaginary (or real if you have the money) theme park that illustrates the significant thinkers and thoughts of philosophy in the western tradition.

The premise of the park is fairly simple: Create sections of the theme park that illustrate the major movements of philosophy. Disney World, for example, has “themed lands” such as Tomorrowland, Neverland, and Frontierland. Each of these sections has rides, shows, landscaping, restaurants, gift shops, and other attractions that feed on their respective themes.

So, what are the major themes of Western philosophy? In other words, how would this theme park be laid out? Personally, I think using the layout of Disney’s Epcot theme park would work the best given the way the park splits directions soon after you enter. You either go right or left to see the attractions around the lake. In philosophy, there is a similar divide as seen in the works of both Plato and Aristotle. In fact, it’s been said that all of western philosophy is nothing more than a footnote to Plato and Aristotle. Or, to put that another way, philosophy in the last two millennia has worked to articulate and reconcile the relationship between rationalism (Plato) and empiricism (Aristotle).

Before I deal with these lines of thought more concretely, allow me to back up the courtesy tram to give you the big picture.

When a visitor comes into the theme park, he or she might walk through an introductory pavilion focusing on the work of the Milesian (or “pre-Socratic) philosophers such as Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Thales, and Anaximander. I’ll leave the details of this to your imagination, but this introductory pavilion might feature a flowing river to illustrate Heraclitus’s notion of change—“You can never step in the same river twice.” And, for Pythagoras, there could be some kind of mathematical attraction illustrating his quest to achieve purity of soul through number crunching. Math was much more than a number thing to him; it was about being a clean person. Oh, and he also discouraged people from eating beans, if you get my drift.

Next would come Socrates, the first giant figure in philosophy. Perhaps this first “themed land” could be shaped like a question mark to emphasize his relentless questioning of premises—hence his Socratic method of questioning. What attraction, display, ride, or architectural feature could be built to illustrate his notion of serving as a midwife in giving birth to the philosophical ideas of others? What would best illustrate his fight against relativism, and his death that resulted from that fight?

Moving on, a visitor would either zig left to Platoland or zag right to Aristotle’s themed area (name?). The footprint of these two park sections would perhaps be the largest in the entire park given the scope of their thinking and the range of their influence. There are many attractions that could be added such as Plato’s Myth of the Cave Roller Coaster or Aristotle’s Marine Life Pavilion—he actually had over 1,000 people scouring the waters of the Mediterranean to collect marine specimens for his research.

But perhaps the most pressing question is this: How will each of them come to know “the cheeseburger.” In other words, if you brought Plato and Aristotle into a room and asked them both to explore the essence of what a cheeseburger is, you would find that they would have two radically different strategies for arriving at this “truth.” It would take too long to unpack in this blog entry, but I’ll offer a brief explanation in the next 2 paragraphs.

Plato, a rationalist, would seek to explore the inner recesses of his mind to find out what a cheeseburger is (cheeseburger NOT included). In fact, the further Plato could run from a physical cheeseburger, the better. His goal was to find the “form,” or the “ideal” burger—the one explanation that encapsulates exactly what a cheeseburger is—and not just one particular cheeseburger, but EVERY CHEESEBURGER. He was after “cheeseburgerness,” so to speak. So, Plato might lock himself in a mop closet, kill the lights, and search his mind for the real meaning of a burger—a meaning that he believes has existed from eternity.

Meanwhile, Aristotle would be slobbering like a contestant at a BubbaFest rib-eatin' contest. As an empiricist, the main way Aristotle feels that you can learn about a cheeseburger is through the senses. In other words, he would stay out of the mop closet of philosophical introspection and belly up to the bar of real world sensory experience. This kind of makes sense if you think about it. Who collected physical specimens of squid, sea squirts, etc.? Hint: It wasn’t Plato. Mr. Plato--let's call him Bob--would head back to the mop closet to learn about creatures like the Mediterranean yellow-striped sea bass.

To summarize, it all comes down to a single question in Western philosophy: What are you going to do with the cheeseburger? If you believe that truth about burgers is best explored through the mind, then you are likely a rationalist. You will frolic in Platoland and be delighted to move on in that same direction around the left part of the lake by exploring similarly-related themed lands devoted to Augustine and Descartes.

On the other hand, if you believe that scarfing burgers is the path to truth, then you will likely be an empiricist and prefer Aristotle. You will find yourself invigorated as you move on along the right part of the lake by exploring the themed parks featuring Aquinas and British Empiricists such as Locke, Hume, and Berkeley.

That leads us to an important decision at the far side of the lake. Do we erect a wall to keep the two lines of thought apart? Not according to the one philosopher whom many consider to be the greatest of them all—Immanuel Kant. His ambitious plan was to unite the two schools of thought. In other words, Kant felt it best to eat the cheeseburger in the mop closet. So, Kantland, or whatever, will explore this synthesis.

Oh, and what to do about modern philosophy? One might propose drowning it in the middle of the lake, but another choice would be to extend it beyond Kantland in the opposite direction of the main entrance. Of any of the themed land areas, this part of the park will be the most difficult of all to construct. Its thoughts and thinkers are more often characterize not by what they are proposing, but by what they reject. This is a theme land of philosophical negation in which you can never know the truth about what a cheeseburger is. There is no CHEESEBURGER, but only individual cheeseburgers as perceived by our individual and subjective experiences. In this place, you might say, "The cheeseburger on my plate is the best burger in the world," only to be met with, "Well, I respect your right to believe that there is a cheeseburger on your plate, but that's not my reality. I choose to believe that you have no burger before you."

Anyway, this is a general overview of the Philosophical Paradise theme park that would make even Jimmy Buffet proud. I’d add more, but I’m getting kind of hungry—for a cheeseburger.