Some philosophical clerihews:
René Descartes
Was undoubtedly very smart.
He is famous for his insistence
That we can prove our own existence.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Had something in common with Wittgenstein.
Both wrote about words and names
And meanings, logic, and language games.
Immanuel Kant,
Unlike Nietzsche, did not rant.
He wrote such dense Critiques
That reading just one chapter can take weeks.
Martin Heidegger was far worse;
His love of obscurity was quite perverse.
He used many a German word
That no other German had ever heard.
David Hume believed in empiricism;
Though a Scot, he spurned Celtic lyricism.
He found no evidence for God –
A view which his contemporaries found most odd.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Was a pessimist who would sit and glower.
He wrote a lot about the Will,
And thought everything was going rapidly downhill.
Plato's 'Forms'
May not accord with modern scientific norms,
But his originality in conceiving them
Can be admired without actually believing them.
Thomas Hobbes insisted
That no innate virtue existed,
And that societies would go wrong
Unless their rulers were strong.
