Potted Philosophers

Pythagoras asseverated
That the spirit transmigrated,
Leaving the body by a route obscene
(That's why he never ate a bean).

Socrates, condemned to die,
Ignored his friends' advice to fly;
If I ever end up in such a scrape
I'll be less moral and escape.

In brutish nastiness began,
Wrote Thomas Hobbes, the life of Man;
Not so, said Rousseau,
Man grew so.

Rene Descartes
Was a man of parts;
One part was heir to a thousand ills,
The other haunts academia still.

Baruch Spinoza, all his life,
Shunned evil habits, sin, and strife.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau though, it seems,
Went to the opposite extremes.

By the punctuality that Kant observed
Folk set their clocks in Koe”nigsberg,
Which is odd considering Kant's position
That time's but a form of intuition.

John Stuart Mill's dad
Educated the lad;
Although this served to toughen up his brain
He later read Wordsworth, and softened it again.

For elevenses Hegel
Ate a sesame bagel -
Inspired by the complex way it twined
He wrote Phenomenology of Mind.

Gilbert Ryle
Wore a happy smile
When suffering from depression
(A systematically misleading expression).

In metaphysics Wittgenstein
Both great depths plumbed and great heights climbed;
I'd follow in the former and the latter
If he hadn't thrown down the bloody ladder.

`Warnock' claims
A double fame:
Geoffrey is the guy's name,
Mary is the Dame's.