The Supreme Tradition of Spelling Bees

Bernard-Henry Lévy quotes Jean-Baptiste Botul which would probably not be news if Botul (and his school of thought, Botulisme) actually existed.

More here, in French.

And I imagine that BHL is now the leading candidate for this year's Prix Botul, which "récompense un ouvrage dans lequel le nom de Jean-Baptiste Botul est mentionné," even though he would require a special exemption from the requirement that the winner of the prize be a member of the jury du prix Botul. (Unless he accepts an appointment to the jury, I guess.)

By the way, the radio program mentions that few philosophers have had songs written about them. I've heard songs about both Jacques Derrida and Noam Chomsky. But I guess that's still "few".

Very funny. Thanks for posting.

I can't think of any songs about philosophers.

(Thinking "Plato . . . looked a lot like a potato . . ." would make a good Carnival hit. I don't know about the rest of the world, but Carnival in the Dutch South has a tradition of horrible, horrible, humorously intended songs, generally about sex and beer and random silliness. Be glad they are hard to translate or I'd have provided some examples.)

That stuff about BHL and Botul were in last weekend's paper. The Int'l Herald Tribune (aka NY Times) enjoyed making fun of him. Lévy has become a caricature of a philosopher here. We were talking about it with friends, and I asked how anyone could not smell a rat if the name of a philosophy is "Botulisme". We figured that he doesn't write his own books but has others working on them (called nègres in French) and he just puts his name on the cover.

He wasn't taken any more seriously after he married a woman who looks like a fairy princess, Arielle Dombasle. Allegedly she's smarter than she looks.

"Plato . . . looked a lot like a potato . . ." would make a good Carnival hit.

Your fortune is all but made, shilgia.

Song about philosphers that I can't believe I didn't think of earlier.

I can't imagine how he could took a fictional philosopher as a real one. Are there works published by Botul that were taken as real at some point?
Maybe he was looking for quotes on internet to support his theories but didn't check properly the origin of them.

Is "happiness through botox" part of this school philosophy?

Loscar, Botul is the pseudonym of a journalist on a satirical newspaper in France, Le Canard Enchaîné (the chained duck).

I think the problem with Lévy (always referred to as BHL) is that probably doesn't do his own work and had hired somebody who didn't check sources. When confronted with the mistake, BHL said that the journalist, Pagès, is a good philosopher.

I just found this article about it.

Apparently Botul's work La Vie Sexuelle d'Emmanuel Kant, the book from which BHL quoted, not only exists as a book but has been translated into German ( Das sexuelle Leben des Immanuel Kant) and Polish (Życie seksualne Immanuela Kanta).

Southern Cone connection: What BHL mentioned was a meeting of neo-Kantians in Paraguay that was referenced in the book.

I am glad I didn't have to be the one to link to that Monty Python song, VinnyD. I do enough Python stuff on the Double Grab Bag thread.

BHL was discussed at some length on this thread last May, and not approvingly. Given the way he now insists that he is still right in some meta-way that just drips with chutzpah, I doubt any comeuppance will be forthcoming. His argument is a gussied up version of what the great public intellectual Étienne Colbert might call "truthiness."

That Crete article was very interesting. I'm afraid it wasn't until just a couple of years back that I learned how long ago the Australian Aborigines had made the crossing to Australia.

CK

I'm afraid it wasn't until just a couple of years back that I learned how long ago the Australian Aborigines had made the crossing to Australia.

Yeah, me too.