Knockout Game Explained By Philosophers From Zeno To Heidegger
11/26/2013
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Commenter Modern Abraham points out:
Can we just exhaust all epistemic uncertainties right now and be done with it? Thumbing through my History of Western Philosophy, here is a crib sheet for the benefit of the Reality-based Community: 
pre-Socratic: The knockout game is impossible because a fist would have to traverse an infinite number of infinitesimally small spaces just to reach a head. 
Socratic: Those who admit they know nothing about the knockout game are wiser than those who think they do. 
Aristotelian: No man can be called happy until he has died never having suffered the knockout game. 
Scholastic: The knockout game is mentioned in neither the Bible or the Greek philosophers [sic- bad, second-hand translation from Arabic of a bad translation from the Greek] 
Descartes: All I can know for certain is that I am thinking of the knockout game. 
Leibniz: If the knockout game were real, this would not be the best of all possible worlds. 
Hume: That getting punched in the head, blacking out, and hitting the concrete have always tended to follow one other in the past does not mean we ever have grounds to believe that getting punched in the head causes one to black out and hit the concrete (this one's for you, Yglesias!) 
Kant: It is never permissible to lie, even if it is to misdirect knockout game players from their intended victim. 
Hegel: The knockout game is the necessary antithesis to the Trayvon Martin shooting's thesis. Their synthesis will advance the World Spirit. 
Nietzsche: All higher culture is based on the knockout game. 
William James: The point is not whether the knockout game is good or bad, but is it useful? 
Heidegger: To be a victim of the knockout game is to experience true dasein by being thrown into the world and having one's crushed, bleeding temple be finally ready-at-hand instead of just present-at-hand.
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