Another phenomology of spirit

Of course I have no idea what the context of the conversation was, but I remember the physical setting vividly. It's grad school, sometime in the 20th century. It's another day in the life of SuperTAgirl and she is conferring with Thomas Seebohm on this'n'that, Lukashavicz or one-stroke logic or the correct way to pronounce "eureka" or some-such and he drops the bombshell: "You know, SuperTAgirl, that ze zychology profezzors are all crazy and zay all went into zychology in order to find out ze source of zere inzanity. And ze communication profezzors cannot communicate, ze philosophy stoodents all vant to know ze meeeening of life, I von't zay anysing about ze philosophy profezzors!"

I will tell you about the meeeening of life sometime. It's actually pretty funny how SuperTAgirl often was mistaken for either(1)a sophisticated con artist, or (2)a sweet and naive youngster with no life skills or experiences relevant to getting through grad school or professional academic hurdles. (There was a little bit of truth in both mistakes.) Nonetheless, Seebohm's revelation was breathtaking. I could identify all the characters he named! But I was not seeking the meaning of life in philosophy. I only wanted truth and some good puzzles.

As for my own courses, I'm not kidding around. I mean it when I tell my students the significance of Descartes, Locke, Darwin, etc. When I bore down on E.O. Wilson this semester, I was deadly serious. If they didn't feel like protesting to the point of throwing tomotoes at the man, their sensibilities were simply not arousable. So i got a little hot under that collar that he wrote a letter to a pastor in his book The Future of Life That was really me, but here was a real criticism there. I don't have a philosophical illnes (rats on you, Wittgenstein!) More on Wilson later.