Slog - Comments on The Teeth of Women http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women Plato is the one pointing up and Aristotle, his pupil, is the one pointing out. Because he was a biologist and focused on the changing world, rather than on eternal forms, for years and years I sided with Aristotle (pointing out), the very ground of Western thinking. That all changed a few days ago when I discovered that Aristotle, the father of modern science, the man who put an emphasis on seeing, on observation, on theory (a word that comes from him and has its root meaning in seeing--to theorize is to think about what one sees)--this man, Aristotle, believed... Copyright 2008 Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:52:13 -0800 Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:07:07 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by jonathan Wow, Charles, I never knew that about Aristotle. Yeah, if you're into picking sides, Plato seems to be a good bet. IS that pic from The School of Athens?

Aristotle has a thought provoking essay on the word IS. I'm reaching back here to Philosophy 101, but I did think on it during the Clnton/Lewinsky debates.

]]> jonathan http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482626 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482626 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:02:55 -0800 Comment by Jonah I think you mean Aristotle believed women had "fewer" teeth than men -- unless you subconsciously deny the countability of teeth.

]]> Jonah http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482627 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482627 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:05:17 -0800 Comment by BC Charles, I hope this isn’t a segue into how George Bush is a benevolent, enlightened despot, our Platonic ideal come to life in flesh and blood.

The job description for that does include complete sentences, you know.

(PS you’re not sucking up to Erica today are you?)

]]> BC http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482631 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482631 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:08:53 -0800 Comment by robotslave Certainly it's not possible that absent modern dentistry, one might find that women's wisdom teeth are less likely to erupt than men's? Were the men of ancient Greece more likely to suffer from hyperdontia? Were women more likely to have hypodontia?


Charles, have you yourself bothered to count men's and women's teeth? We are all taught that adults have 32 teeth, but have you verified this with observation?


Let's try an experiment, shall we? Everyone posting here, include the number of teeth you've got, and your gender. Charles, send an email to the staff of The Stranger asking each person their gender and number of teeth, and report back.


Mudede, you accuse Aristotle of being a Platonist with regard to teeth not because you can demonstrate his theories lacked observational foundation, but rather because you yourself are a Teeth Platonist.


(M/29)

]]> robotslave http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482665 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482665 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:05:35 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Science is a product of the Enlightenment, not a bunch of blind Greeks. Aristotle, like pretty much everyone before him and after him up until Isaac Newton, didn't count a woman's teeth because it never occurred to him. Testing a hypothesis against experience? Why on earth would you do that? Truth can only be discovered by using logic to discern the ideal form of things. Indeed, Aristotle would have considered a physical test of his hypothesis to be absurd and wrong. Women DO have fewer teeth than men, and if they have the same number of teeth, then the existence of the world is called into question.

Just one of many reasons that scientists today still talk about Newton but never about Aristotle. He's a fucking idiot.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482667 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482667 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:07:01 -0800 Comment by fryday In essence, the ideal enlightened path - considering you have buck teeth - is to visit an orthoplatonist.

]]> fryday http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482686 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482686 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:33:07 -0800 Comment by kinaidos First, given the tendency of the modern greeks to horrible halitosis, looking into his wife's mouth might not have been a live option for Aristotle.
Second, women are more likely to by hypodontic. So he was probably right.
Third, Aristotle's biological explanations are sometimes based on his own observations but are often based on those of physicians, farmers, etc. It wasn't that he was against the empirical. It's rather that he thought experts are a better judge of what is normal, and it's those sorts of judgments that he's interested in.
This latter notion is a general principle of Aristotle when it comes to knowledge. Ethical knowledge presupposes ethical practice. Technical knowledge presupposes technical practice. Scientific knowledge presupposes natural practice (husbandry, economics, and medicine). Without engaging in these practices, one is in no position to grasp the teleology (the wherefore) of the objects one is trying to know.

]]> kinaidos http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482691 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482691 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:38:41 -0800 Comment by BC Who are you, and what have you done with the real Charles Mudede?

]]> BC http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482695 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482695 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:43:24 -0800 Comment by Timothy Just sided with Plato? Can you be serious? Your pursuit of idealism betrays a mind well-steeped in platonic forms.

Methinks you kid...

]]> Timothy http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482700 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482700 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:53:14 -0800 Comment by Fnarf Speaking of husbandry, the fine Aristotlean thinkers at the University of Paris two thousand years after Aristotle got into a similar conundrum about the number of a horse's teeth. They also failed to consider the option of just having a look, and instead modeled a fine array of Mudede-like abstract theoretical disquisitions. None of them were right.

]]> Fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482712 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482712 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:03:15 -0800 Comment by The future Hey Charles- You checkin out the Deleuze film? Think it'll be as good as the Zizek, Derrida and Wittgenstein films? There has to be a movie of The Cave, no? Is popcornyphilosophy good for your teeth?

]]> The future http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482732 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482732 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:20:01 -0800 Comment by Joh Unfortunately the version of the picture Charles posted has been altered. The original can be seen below.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/luciddellusions/platoball.jpg

]]> Joh http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482748 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482748 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:37:52 -0800 Comment by brian M/28 minus my wisdom teeth that ancient greeks would not have taken out. So add 4 more teeth, so 32.

]]> brian http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482769 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482769 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:18:52 -0800 Comment by Mokawi I'm surprised nobody asked about the authenticity of Mudede's sayings. There's a lot of rambling about philosophers (cf. Wittgenstein's fire poker assault).
Now, he did, at least he did if he wrote the History of Animals. Verifications made it in II, 3, 501a20.
Now, well, I just love that you side with Plato, because I'm more of an Aristotelician. Though I enjoy and praise your ease to say stupid things on a blog, I feel better with you on the side of clouds-shoving metaphysicists.

]]> Mokawi http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482811 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482811 Arts Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:43:59 -0800 Comment by kelly even concrete based minds can use metaphors.

]]> kelly http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482991 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c482991 Arts Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:12:10 -0800 Comment by john (1) Fnarf is an idiot.
(2) Rather unempirically, I don't see any citation of where exactly Aristotle said that. And maybe he thought they were less likely to get wisdom teeth or soemthing (some people get none, some people get extras).
(3) What's waaay more interesting is Aristotle's discussion of women's cold and wet nature in "On the Generation of Animals" which I, sadly, only have from Mahowald's "Philosophy of Woman" 3rd edition.

]]> john http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c483027 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c483027 Arts Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:04:18 -0800 Comment by Warsaw apartments Wow, Charles, I never knew that about Aristotle. Yeah, if you're into picking sides, Plato seems to be a good bet. IS that pic from The School of Athens? I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/

]]> Warsaw apartments http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c492553 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/the_teeth_of_women#c492553 Arts Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:07:07 -0800