Obscure philosophy question

Everything else
1

So there was this philosopher, I would guess early 20th century but not sure, who wrote something like:

“Suppose I put my pen into my desk drawer and close it, and then open it again; if the pen were not to be there, then I should go insane; therefore there is no point in considering counterfactuals”.

That’s a very poor paraphrase, and indeed perhaps an entirely incorrect one, but I think it’s a fairly well known passage… among metaphysics students.

I can’t remember who it might have been who wrote it, since I read it over 20 years ago. Is there a philosophy major in the house? Any ideas?

2

It didn’t ring a bell with my Dad (a retired philosophy professor), but he says it sounds like Bertrand Russell.

Peter

3

No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Russell, I think it was someone a bit less well known to non-philosophers.

Randomly clicking around through lists of philosophers made me think for a minute it might be Gilbert Ryle, but I honestly have no good reason to think so, just a sort of resonance on the name, and searching on Ryle and on some of those words didn’t help much, so it’s actually probably not him either.

Thanks for asking, though.

4

“while others embrace reality, we ascend it”
reality is what we make of it, there is nothing more relative than fact

5

I don’t know. It’s not familiar. Maybe Wittgenstein? It sounds like the kind of dismissing thing he might’ve said. I’ll rattle some cages.

6

Sounds like G.E. Moore to me, but I don’t know the quote.

Or possibly Quine?

While I have a PhD in philosophy, logic/epistemology is not my specialty. Some of my colleagues will know though, if you really need to find out.

7

Everyone with a PhD does. rimshot :)

8

Fair enough, Guap.

Oh, a quick google suggests you may be thinking of Harry Frankfurt for the quote.

9

I think it’s not Quine. IMO Quine would never argue along those lines. He also said “Whistling in the dark is not the method of true philosophy”, which I would argue is inconsistent with the remark I tried to reproduce – that sounds a lot like whistling in the dark to me :)

What I really want is to find the actual passage, whether it’s Moore or Frankfurt or whomever… However, I was hoping someone would just by some fluke remember, I think actually bothering to inquire amongst colleagues might be going a bit too far – but far be it from me to hold you back :)

Some characters in a story I’m fiddling with seem to be talking about philosophy, and I thought one of them might bring up that remark as an argument against supernatural phenomena.