Saul Kripke's song from the philosophy roleplaying musical Fermat's Last Stand. Read more at http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/08/17/...
LYRICS:
CERUNE:
Dear kind Professor Kripke
You gotta help us out
We cannot get a grip-ke
What language is about
You bring in modal logics
For reading simple text
Golly! Moses!
That's why we're perplexed!
ALL:
Philosopher Kripke, this all is a blur
We still don't understand the way descriptions refer
We aren't illit'rate, we just haven't seen
How language ever comes to mean
CERUNE:
Comes to mean!
ALL:
Comes to mean, comes to mean
What does language mean
How do we determine what words mean?
KRIPKE: (spoken)
That's not a question for philosophers! Meaning is determined by the average language user!
CERUNE: (spoken)
Great idea! I'll ask the average language user!
Dear average language user
Please give advice to me
Although you are a loser
Without a Ph.D
They say you tell professors
What they must profess
Leaping! Lizards!
That's why we're a mess!
AVERAGE USER:
Philosopher Kripke, you're really a fool!
I only use my words the way I learned them in school!
I don't invent language, I just take a look
Into my teacher's language book!
CERUNE:
In a book!
ALL:
In a book! In a book!
In a language book!
He gets his language from a book!
AVERAGE USER: (spoken)
Really, you should be asking the lexicographers.
CERUNE: (spoken)
Yes! I'll ask the lexi...whatnow?
AVERAGE USER: (spoken)
Lexicographer! Dictionary writer!
CERUNE:
Dear Merriam and Webster
With power so profound
To link a string of letters
To meaning and to sound
The way you gained your office
Is something I don't get
Goodness! Gracious! That's why I'm upset!
LEXICOGRAPHER:
Philosopher Kripke! You've done it again!
You can't define a word with just a stroke of a pen!
Prescriptivist theories should give a man pause
Each definition needs a cause
CERUNE:
Needs a cause?
ALL:
What's the cause? What's the cause?
What's a meaning's cause?
For each definition what's the cause?
CERUNE: So you're proposing a causal theory of reference?
LEXICOGRAPHER: That's right. Why don't you talk to a statistician?
CERUNE:
Dear kindly statistician
Who studies nature's laws
Philosophers envision
Reducing sense to cause
That what words mean depends on
What put them in your brain
Gloriosky! That's why we're insane!
STATISTICIAN:
Philosopher Kripke! You're really a square!
The evidence for true causation just isn't there!
You don't have a Pearl graph, or Bayesian net
Language is something you just get!
CERUNE:
You just get?
ALL:
We just get! We just get!
Even babies get!
Words are something even babies get!
KRIPKE: (spoken)
The problem is the reference:
AVERAGE LANGUAGE USER: (spoken)
The problem is the sense
LEXICOGRAPHER: (spoken)
The problem is the meaning
STATISTICIAN: (spoken)
The problem is you're dense
KRIPKE: (spoken)
The problem's private language
Which can't exist alone
ALL:
Kripke! We've got problems of our own!
Philosopher Kripke, we're really confused
We haven't got a clue the way that words should be used
Your theories don't help us, we wish that you'd stop
Philosopher Kripke, shut up!
