"There are many wonderful books that have never been written, some, naturally, greater than others."
"Show me these wonderful books."
"I can't. They've never been written."
"Then how do you know they exist?"
"They don't."
"Then how do you know they don't exist?"
"By their absence."
"But if you only know they don't exist by their absence, why are you talking of them as if they do exist?"
"I'll put it this way. If in 1850 someone had said that Crime and Punishment is a great book, would be have been lying?"
"But it wasn't written yet."
"So would he have been lying?"
"But it is a great book."
"So prior to its existence did it exist?"
"No, of course not."
"And did it not exist."
"Well I suppose for 'it' to not exist, it would have to be an it in the first place, in which case it would exist."
"Not bad. You're a far higher class of conversationalist than those that Plato employed."
"Yes men?"
"The worst."
"Anyway, have we come to some kind of philosophical conclusion, or is this all some Gogolian nonsense?
"I've no idea."
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2 comments:
Actually, these books do exist. They can be seen and read in the library that was never built.
True. If we can talk about it, it stands that it is an it, therefore it exists, in the form of something of something that can be talked about.
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