“Someone, let’s say a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name.” That line–recently circulated on social media by Eric Winsberg (South Florida / Cambridge) as “the funniest sentence in the history of philosophy”—is from Saul Kripke‘s Naming and Necessity. I’m not sure its the funniest sentence in the history of philosophy, but it is pure poetry. And it may be the best example of unintentional self-parody in the history of analytic philosophy.* To be sure of that, though, we’d need to know what the other candidates for this designation might be. Your suggestions? *UPDATE: Some are suggesting Kripke’s line was meant to be funny, in which case I suppose we should broaden the request for suggestions to include intentional self-parodies by analytic philosophers. The post Analytic Philosophy’s Best Unintentional (?) Self-Parodying first appeared on Daily Nous.

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