page_title: Bruces' Philosophers Song
section_title: The philosophers
hierarchical_section_title: Bruces' Philosophers Song / The philosophers
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Martin Heidegger. Detail of a phototograph entitled&#160;: "W 134 Nr. 060678d - Hausen: Festakt, in der Reihe, Kultusminister Storz, Prof. Heidegger, Dichtel". Additional reference&#160;: Teilbestand W 134 (Neg. BaWü), Teil 1 - Fotosammlung Willy Pragher: Filmnegative Baden-Württemberg, Teil 1.
context_page_description: "Bruces' Philosophers Song", also known as "The Bruces' Song", is a popular Monty Python song written and composed by Eric Idle that was a feature of the group's stage appearances and its recordings.
context_section_description: All the philosophers whom the song mentions were dead by the time it appeared, apart from Martin Heidegger.
  Philosophers mentioned in the song (in order):
  Immanuel Kant (a real pissant who was very rarely stable)
  Martin Heidegger (a boozy beggar who could think you under the table)
  David Hume (able to outconsume G. W. F. Hegel)
  Arthur Schopenhauer (some versions) (outconsumed by Hume)
  G. W. F. Hegel (Ibid)
  Ludwig Wittgenstein (a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel)
  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel and/or August Wilhelm Schlegel (Wittgenstein is alleged be just as sloshed as)
  Friedrich Nietzsche (particularly knowledgeable about "the raising of the wrist")
  Socrates (the only one mentioned twice in the song) (permanently pissed)
  John Stuart Mill (particularly ill after half a pint of shandy)
  Plato (said to regularly consume half a crate of whiskey daily)
  Aristotle (a bugger for the bottle)
  Thomas Hobbes (fond of his dram)
  René Descartes (a drunken fart)
  Socrates (second mention) (particularly missed, noted as both a lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed)
  Some of the philosophers seem to be portrayed according to their works.
  Kant being "very rarely stable" could harken to his theory of a stable universe.
  John Stuart Mill becoming ill "of his own free will" could allude to his 1859 work On Liberty, which argues for liberty that does no harm to others.  Also in Chapter 5 of Utilitarianism, Mill uses the expression "freedom of the will" when considering the Robert Owen principle that it is unjust to punish anyone for what he cannot help.
  Plato is, famously, the author of the dialogue Symposium, taking place at a drinking party, as the title itself says. Socrates appears prominently in it.
  The Descartes line, "I drink therefore I am", is clearly a twist on his well-known phrase "Cogito, ergo sum," or "I think therefore I am".
caption: Heidegger in 1960
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