Mr. Weaver: Far be it for me, an experienced intellectual neophyte, to refute your clearly-defined and well-argued assertion that the Student Assembly does not, in fact, exist and that any philosophical attempt to prove otherwise is doomed to failure ["Its That Time of Year Again ..." The Dartmouth, April 9], but that is precisely what I plan to do. And, not only shall I expose your argument for the silly and weak-minded philosophical gibberish it truly is, but I shall do so in undeniably logical terms that even a person with your modicum of intellectual prowess can grasp. Before I begin, however, I would like to take this opportunity to explain the exact methodological approach by which I shall trounce your position and point out that I will be adhering to the strict lack of brevity that characterizes all sound and incontrovertible philosophical arguments. I shall wield the venerable Mr. Ockham's razor quite sparingly as I do so, as the clarity of thought advocated by his vehicle of argument can only serve to compromise the great obfuscation of the proof that I will shortly unfold before your very eyes.
For the remainder of this column, I shall employ a syllogism, that humble deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise followed by a conclusion (as in "apples are red; I eat apples; ergo I must be red").
With this strategy clearly established, kindly allow me to proceed to my first point, being that a certain entity known as the Student Assembly puts up posters. We know this to be true by means of the great Triple Wire Analogy, devised and employed by the modern Peking school, which states that if a plumber were to enter a home in modern society with the intent of repairing a damaged drainpipe he will inevitably encounter three wires as he is rummaging about under the sink. One will be the Red Wire, one will be the White Wire, and the third will be of an indeterminable nature and thus hereafter referred to as Wire X ("X" being, parenthetically, the variable that marks the spot where mathematicians tend to encounter integers which refuse to divulge their true values). After discovering and considering several lengthy and quite respectable philosophical proofs which are familiar to scholars the world around and so do not need to be recounted here, the plumber will invariably realize that Wire X is indeed a wire and not something that is not a wire. By doing so he proves the assertion made at the onset of the analogy that, contrary to the notion asserted by certain marginalized and no doubt repressed metaphysical societies, that which appears to be a wire is indeed a wire, and therefore that which we perceive to be posters are indeed posters and not some form of rudimentary electrical wiring and were indeed put up by your supposedly non extant entity, quid pro quo "Student Assembly."
As we now move onto the second, or minor, premise upon which the remainder of my proof rests, allow me to put forth the fact that the aforementioned posters are made out of paper which, if one were to stand it on end and move back and forth across the exposed flesh of one's forearm in a vigorous sawing motion, would doubtlessly cause a festering paper cut of such dire proportions as to no doubt require minimal medical attention while simultaneously confirming its reality. And, as Immanuel Kant asserted in one of his lesser-known but still quite illuminating treatises on the theory of knowledge, that which causes empirical or sensorineural pain can be separated into three distinct essences of being: (1) physical being, (2) emotional being, and (3) quasiprimordial being. It is precisely this quasiprimordial level of existence of the object in question (in this case our near-lethal piece of poster paper) that asserts it as indisputably real; it strikes a chord deep within the very essence of humankind and, as any musician specializing in percussion can clearly testify, that which strikes or has the capacity to strike an object with the force necessary to create audible resonance is composed of decidedly solid matter.
And now on to the conclusion, the icing on the proverbial dessert pastry, if you will, that allows me to assert my proof beyond the shadow of any reasonable, and thus respectable, person's doubt. As I have already proven, there is an entity of unknown origin hitherto referred to as the "Student Assembly" that puts up posters and these posters are indisputably real and composed of quite solid if not resonant matter, ergo this body known only as the "Student Assembly" does indeed exist and can indeed be classified as a musical instrument of the percussive variety.
Mr. Weaver, I would like to close my argument by telling you that not only do I respect you and your ideas, I am honestly considering writing a letter to your father expressing my extreme condolences on having fathered a son such as yourself who forces him to squander his hard-earned dollars on an expensive education that only appears to be teaching his supposedly bright offspring to churn out reams of nonsensical intellectual drivel. I am glad we took advantage of this opportunity to agree to disagree, as it were, and look forward to crossing my rapier wit with your intellectual cabbage again in the future.
